Bike Culture

This via Retronaut: You can stop watching after the first couple of minutes - unless you want to play 1950s RP Bingo. Points awarded for every time the narrator says the word “lovely”!
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We live by the sea, which can be very hard on anything you leave outside. After nearly 13 years in this house, the front gate’s post and latch finally gave up the fight, and needed replacing. Reasoning that most things can be done by bike, I went to F.E. Maughan’s, the hardware store in Whitley...
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We’re getting closer to the official launch of the Frankenbike, and over the last week I’ve been building the cargo box. As this DIY bakfiets has been cobbled together from other bikes and the frame angles have been done by eye, I’ve not had any drawings. So the box had to be built in-situ, with...
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This via Adam Ef on the Twitters: It reminds me of when I was a student, and my bike was detained by the police for several weeks to “help them with their enquiries”. During this time, I still had to get into lectures, so I borrowed the 1960s shopper that our landlady had left in...
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First of all, a jolly big “well done” to all of you who entered last week’s contest. Sadly, there can only be one winner, and the best bribes were provided by KarlT with his caption, “It’s used for emphasis when you tell a pig ignorant taxi driver to go fsck himself.” Thanks for the crate of...
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A couple of quotes about flying - just substitute the words “fly” for “ride”, or “aircraft” for “bike” etc.: “Flying in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.” Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London. c. early...
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I’ve done well - it’s now 13 months since I last fell off a bike. That was when I discovered a patch of black ice and the front wheel went out from under me like a jolly fast thing on a very slippy surface. Since then I’ve been extremely wary of ice, wet roads, patches...
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I went for pretty much six months without a single flat. Then the post-Christmas weather sent everyone’s recycling bins blowing along our back alley (not a euphemism), scattering broken glass everywhere. In the last two weeks I’ve had five flats, including this morning… …A puncture in my Pashley’s Schwalbe Marathon Plus rear tyre I’ve had this...
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Before we begin, a jolly big “well done” to all of you who entered last week’s contest. The clear winner was Tlatet, who correctly identified that this was an escaped maths lecturer from the Open University. But most of the rest of you did really quite well, so you have permission to go for...
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There’s no doubt about it, the car industry is very successful at marketing. It sells us a dream of driving along the open road… The Dream: The Reality: The Alternate Reality (do watch this one ’till the end!): They tell us about the sporty playfulness to be had in towns and cities: The Dream: The Reality: The Alternate Reality: The tell...
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