Stuff

So there’s this crack in the paint on Trixie The Fixie - near the base of the downtube, just about where it enters the bottom bracket’s lug. It’s been bugging me for a while, so a couple of days ago I took a small grinding tool to it to strip off the paint &...
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. . . like a fish needs a bicycle . . . Get a bike instead:
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My copy of the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative’s spring cataolgue turned up in the post today. But rather than being in the usual boring polywrap, it was in a not-so-plain brown paper envelope. Sketches of all sorts of bikes on the front, and this mind map on the back: Cool! I love mind maps and ideas...
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So last September I bought a tandem from Ebay. £50 for about a late ’70s Pashley beauty. It needed some tender loving care, so I . . . Dismantled it to the bare frame Stripped the paint by hand, and rubbed the frame down to the bare, shiny metal. Had a word with a friend who owns...
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Today looked like spring, so what better weather for riding could there be? Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. So I visited two clients on Siegfried, and on the trip to the second one (just after lunch time) it was warm enough to put my nice red woolen jumper in my...
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You may have gathered that I got a new bike. It’s a Pashley Roadster Sovereign. That’s not a photo of my actual bike, but one just like it. I’m waiting for a decent sunrise over the sea to take my own photos and scoop the EcoVelo photograph prize. After much agonising, I’ve gone with my first...
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I have more than one bike, so I also have the luxury that they’re not all completely sensible. Trixie the Fixie & Christine have no mudguards (fenders). They also both have skinny tyres and the only way to carry any luggage on them is to put it on your back. On Trixie, there aren’t...
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When I was a kid I rode for years without puting so much as a drop of oil on my chain . . . But for some reason now, it seems to be something that needs doing just all the damned time . . . I’ve tried all sorts of lubes, ointment and jollops, but it’s...
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I remember about, oh, eight years ago, I gave up my three vices for Lent - caffeine, chocolate and alcohol. It’s not that I’m religious at all, but denial of the senses is certainly good for the soul. Or whatever we have if we don’t have souls. I was expecting the end result of all...
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So at the weekend I fixed the slow puncture in my back tyre. It’d been a slow puncture because the inner tube had had the slime treatment. Any. Way. I followed the advice of the guy from the bike shop, and used the old inner tube as a tyre liner. After cutting the valve off, I...
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