Cycling UK Forum

Usually tapping the brake lines gets the bubbles out of them. Tilt the bike fore and aft to help. I have a step through eBike and some maintenance needs it to be inverted.

Are you going to guarantee "usually"?

If you or I choose to invert our bikes and have a braking disaster then it's our problem, a local group of volunteers working on someone else's bike on the other hand...

A mirror on a stick?

backnotes wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024, 2:44pm I'm doing a risk assessment for an activity that involves volunteers

For a business the most expensive element of the control measures is the labour, and the most cost effective way to reduce the risk as low as reasonably practical is usually to buy suitable lifting equipment etc. to eliminate or reduce the degree of manual handling.

For an organisation that cannot afford such equipment, but which has free or very cheap labour, such as a charity with volunteers, I would aim to reduce the risk as low as reasonably practical by best utilising the free labour.

For example, two people standing either side of a bike should be able to lift the front wheel up high enough to make it easy enough for a third person to see a number on the underside of the bottom bracket. That person reads out the frame number and a fourth person writes it down (the third person is likely to need a rag and torch to wipe the bottom bracket and see the number clearly).

Various additional control measures should/may be included, such as positioning the rear wheel against a chock of some kind to stop the tendency of the bike to roll backwards when the front is lifted.

Consider carefully the physical condition and strength of the volunteers. Not all may be strong enough to lift a bike even as one of two lifters. Similarly repeatedly bending/crouching down is stressful, and it may only be appropriate for someone to do so a limited number of times. Therefore it might be that the best option is for the two strongest to do the bike lifting, and the other two to take turns at reading the numbers and at writing them down. Even with rotation, you probably should consider having a maximum number of bikes you will do in any one session.

Rather than formulating and writing the risk assessment and then presenting it to the volunteers, it is better to develop it with the volunteers. Thus:

- You and they together try out one or more methods, such as the one I have detailed above, to determine and agree upon a safe working method.
- Decide what bikes you will not attempt to do. Some bikes are very heavy and/or will be much more difficult to lift/manhandle, e.g. cargo bikes, some ebikes, tandems, trikes. Your volunteer lifters will not have scales to determine the weight of bikes presented to them, so they will need to use their own judgement on the day, and you need them to exercise caution and err on the side of safety in deciding what bikes to accept.

Involving the volunteers in developing and writing the risk assessment and the safe working method helps ensure that your RA is realistic and practical, and it also helps to get buy in from the volunteers. If you impose something on them that they think is impractical or unnecessary, it is more likely that they will not follow the safe working method. If volunteers have been closely involved in developing the risk assessment and the safe working method, they are both more likely to follow it themselves and to insist that others do (in the jargon = 'safety culture').

I've said above that you need to take into account the physical condition and strength of the volunteers. You will need to ask them if they have any health conditions or infirmities which would affect their ability to lift the bikes. Ask them also if they would prefer only to read or write down the numbers (some might not be happy disclosing medical conditions, but would say that they just want to do the reading/writing).

Go along to at least the first public session to see if it all goes as envisaged. You and the volunteers are likely to need to review the risk assessment during/after the first session.

Airsporter1st wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 2:09pm A mirror on a stick?

That would work, but when it comes to reading letters and numbers they would be reversed. A prism on a stick?

a.twiddler wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 4:34pm

Airsporter1st wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 2:09pm A mirror on a stick?

That would work, but when it comes to reading letters and numbers they would be reversed. A prism on a stick?

The camera of a smart 'phone?

Jonathan

A suitable mirror on the ground would seem the simplest and least hazardous solution to me, with a torch as necessary to cast shadows to clarify the stamped number.

Jdsk wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 4:36pm

a.twiddler wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 4:34pm

Airsporter1st wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 2:09pm A mirror on a stick?

That would work, but when it comes to reading letters and numbers they would be reversed. A prism on a stick?

The camera of a smart 'phone?

Which of course has a built-in light source. And doesn't reverse the image (unless you ask). And records the number for whatever purpose you need it next.

Jonathan

Jdsk wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 4:36pm

a.twiddler wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 4:34pm

Airsporter1st wrote: ↑20 Mar 2024, 2:09pm A mirror on a stick?

That would work, but when it comes to reading letters and numbers they would be reversed. A prism on a stick?

The camera of a smart 'phone?

Jonathan

Boom Boom!

Thanks for the discussion / ideas to date. It sounds like there isn’t a video of an obvious standard way everyone else uses to do this that I was missing. I think what 531Colin suggests is closest to what I do, and works for me and my bike, but I suppose we have small volunteers and big bikes to deal with.

We already use the suggestion to use a mobile phone camera on cargo bikes - they all tend to be fairly new. Most older regular bikes seem to have layers of muck over the frame numbers so it is often easier to invert the bike before cleaning things up so you can even tell if there is a frame number there to be read rather than is the dozen or so other places they can be. Or with the luxury of two people, one of you can rear the bike up on the back wheel, taking care not to scrunch the rear mudguard, and the other can read the number. We do this a lot with heavy e-bikes. Then there are the bikes where the frame number is there under the bottom bracket, but hidden under the plastic gear cable guide. Or there are bikes with no stamped frame number anywhere, like my Elephant Bike.

The idea of using stands would open up new logistical and training issues. This activity may take place on a soggy playing field rather than in a workshop with a nice flat concrete floor, and I’d then be asking for videos of how to use bike stands safely instead! This is for any volunteer, different stands, and any bike in multiple locations. I think there was a thread on here recently where the way around getting bikes safely up onto a stand was to adapt a car engine hoist, which raises its own issues.

And yes, there’s a whole other set of things about not damaging shifters, brake cylinders, lights, computers, bells, e-bike controllers, front baskets, rear baskets, mirrors etc. The focus here was more on not damaging the volunteers.

Anyway, in the absence of anything already out there, I think a staged video of someone doing what 531Colin outlines will be helpful as a next step - thanks! The Giant video from Andy K will also be useful and is good up to a point, but seems to assume that no bikes have full / rear mudguards.

Anyway, thanks for all the great ideas / discussion. Below is a mobile phone photo of a nice clean bottom bracket from today.

backnotes wrote: ↑21 Mar 2024, 12:13am Below is a mobile phone photo of a nice clean bottom bracket from today.

I wonder if a note of the frame number was made before it was obscured by the wires, etc?

Yes, if you’re lucky there will be a purchase receipt with the (same) full number, or there will be a sticker with a barcode label with the (same) full number elsewhere on the bike. The older the bike, the less likely this is.

At least there’s a chance of getting the cable guide off, they can be riveted…..

backnotes wrote: ↑21 Mar 2024, 12:13am ...
This activity may take place on a soggy playing field rather than in a workshop with a nice flat concrete floor...

Is that essential? It increases some risks considerably. Would it not be possible to move to some non-slippery hard surface?

Jonathan

backnotes wrote: ↑21 Mar 2024, 12:13am ...
We already use the suggestion to use a mobile phone camera on cargo bikes - they all tend to be fairly new. Most older regular bikes seem to have layers of muck over the frame numbers so it is often easier to invert the bike before cleaning things up so you can even tell if there is a frame number there to be read rather than is the dozen or so other places they can be. Or with the luxury of two people, one of you can rear the bike up on the back wheel, taking care not to scrunch the rear mudguard, and the other can read the number. We do this a lot with heavy e-bikes. Then there are the bikes where the frame number is there under the bottom bracket, but hidden under the plastic gear cable guide. Or there are bikes with no stamped frame number anywhere, like my Elephant Bike.
...

Thanks for the extra information. But I don't understand that bit.

If there's mud obscuring the number then it needs to be removed. But you don't need to invert the bike to do that.

If there's a cable guide or similar that needs to be discovered and removed.

A 'phone and a bucket would work as an efficient first step in either case.

Jonathan

“Back notes” is presumably doing all this to get somebody else’s bike recorded on some kind of register.
Am I the only one who thinks it would be reasonable to expect the owner to provide the frame number?

I’m somewhat jaded by my experience of the police register of found/recovered stolen bikes.
A red Raleigh 21gear mountain bike might be filed under;
Red or Raleigh or mountain…..,,.