Cycling UK Forum

I can confirm the keep your fingers out of the chain - I took the tip off my thumb on one......
whilst the bike was hanging up a friend kindly wound the peddles up whilst I wasn't looking, I then went to clean the chain !

also, watch for getting too close to the kerb as you cant just stop peddling if your pedal is going to hit it

I love popular science books
at the moment reading Leonard Susskind - "The Black Hole War"

Some of my favourites:
Brian Greene - The Fabric of the Cosmos
Matt Ridley - Genome
Walter Alvarez - T Rex and the Crater of Doom
James Watson - DNA, The Secret of Life
Richard Feynman- Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman

This is the one I use - http://alanesq.com/cyclecam.htm

I use it every day and am still very impressed with it, certainly for the price you can't go wrong

I do not use my central heating mainly because it is just too expensive, but I could not live without my aircon (in the house that is)
Before I got myself one I would spend long summer nights unable to sleep then spend the day feeling like I had the flu because of the heat........on and on it went

BTW - My single room aircon doesn't cost a lot to run

thirdcrank wrote:As I've often posted on here, another of his phraes was "What would happen if everybody did it?" Although I first remember that in as an explanation for forbidding me to throw stones in the canal, it applies to so many things, of which car ownnership is a good example.
The short explanation is that most of us are pretty selfish.

I think you have summed up the situation perfectly there

could you get the lens made by another company?
e.g. http://www.reglazemyglasses.com

Knowing my luck if this was me, I would have been stopped by the police on the way to return it and got arrested for it's theft

Here is some advice from Sheldon Brown on brake squeel:

Avoid holding the rim with greasy hands! Hold the wheel by the spokes instead.

"Toe in" the brake shoes, so that the front edge of the shoe hits the rim slightly before the rear edge. Not all brakes permit this type of adjustment, but most do. Don't bend aluminum brake arms: this can initiate cracking and lead to failure. Instead, replace the brake if necessary.

Clean the rims with a good, oil-free solvent (citrus, alcohol, something like that.) In obstinate cases, wash.with dishwashing detergent and a nylon-bristle brush to clean brake-shoe deposits and remaining solvent off the rim; then rinse with water. Sanding the surface of a new brake shoe lightly will remove any slippery chemical deposits. Jobst Brandt recommends using a dusting of household cleanser on a wet rim, then riding and applying the brake to clean the brake shoes and the rim.

If the pivots of your brakes are adjustable, make sure that you've eliminated as much play as possible without causing them to bind.

Better brake shoes may help. We particularly recommend Kool Stop salmon-colored brake shoes.

A "brake booster" may help. This is a horseshoe-shaped arch that connects the two cantilever bolts or centerpull pivots together, making the whole system more rigid.

from - http://sheldonbrown.com/rim-brakes.html

It is impossible to make a bike thief proof, and if it was they may just trash your bike out of spite anyway......
all you can do is reduce the risk and any trick you can think of will help - be that an expensive lock, alarm, several locks, making your bike less desirable etc. etc
btw - I have seen a picture of a bike which had all the spokes cut and the hub stolen !

A good quality lock has to be a good start though and at least you have then done away with the risk of feeling a right plonker when your bike is stolen because you used a £8 lock (as I have experienced myself )

One down side of a good lock is if you lose your key or it jams etc. then you have big problems getting it off yourself.

ukdodger wrote:Anything that's made today for old bikes tends to be rubbish including brake blocks.

Tell me about it !
here is what my brakes looked like after trying an emergency stop
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/cycles/blocks.jpg

I bought cotter pins from 3 different suppliers but they all might as well have been made from plasticine

As it happens I now have 4 good cotter pins as my dad had some given to him many years ago by someone who worked at Raleigh, but this was too late as I had already given up and converted it to square taper.
btw - it is reasonably easy to fit a modern sealed bottom bracket to these bikes - info here - http://houseofyes.wordpress.com/phil-wood-y-bottom-bracket/

It was a very steep learning curve finding out that modern cotter pins tend to be useless, and I have had the same experience with modern replacement brake blocks (the most recent ones I bought just threw them selves down the road when I tried to brake hard)

I will stop now though as I don't want to hijack this thread...........

foxychick wrote:That is awesome alan what is it like to pedal. i bet the bike weighs a ton. Have you restored it yourself?

thanks
opinion seems divided on this, it is certainly an interesting bike I have ended up with
It has been a right pain "restoring" it, but I am finally getting somewhere

Surprisingly, I am finding this bike no slower or difficult to pedal than my modern bike
I tend not to do more than 18mph anyway


It seems that you can not get decent cotters pin any more, so I had to give up on them
apart from that - steel cranks always seem to just bend (may be because I ride fixed?)

Yes, this is what I don't understand. I had assumed rod brakes were used because the cable brakes had not been invented but I have seen a cycle in Wollaton Hall museum from the 30s with cable brakes??

I have spent the best part of a week trying to get my front rod brake to work. Although to be fair, I think most of my problems are because modern parts (i.e. the brake blocks) are not very good quality?
And don't get me started on cottered cranks.............

BTW - here is my beast
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.blackham/cycles/bb.jpg

----------

Just had a Google on the subject and it seems the advantage of rod brakes is you can repair them with simple tools. I guess this makes some sense as there is not much you can do with a broken cable if all you have is a hammer, but I still wouldn't recommend rod brakes

having just bought a bike of this sort of age, I found this film really interesting
a lot more went into building them than I had imagined

rod brakes though - WHY???

says no permit required here
http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/contact-us/faqs/cycling