ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Keeping a cheap bike locked at the station?
- Thread starter Binka
- Start date
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SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
- Location
- London
Banjo said:
Same mentality as me for local hack use. I've got a couple of cheapos on which I've scraped all the make/model logos off the frames and given them a quick rub down ready for hand painting. I found a very dark blue machinery paint at a good price online for this purpose.
The whole point of this is that it doesn't stand out by being brightly coloured, and having no logos means a thief would have trouble convincing a punter to buy it off them secondhand as they would struggle convincing them what bike it was and therefore it's market value. No criminal youth who wants to nick a bike for their own use is going to be seen dead riding around on some old dark dingy looking thing with no visible branding - they'd get too much stick from their mates.
One thing I would say is always carry a bike pump with you, but not leave it on the bike. You never know when some smart arse might decide to let the tyres down when it's parked for a laugh. Inconvenient and annoying even if no damage done.
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Tin Pot
Guru
Does a £20 bike need all this effort to make it look crap?
SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
- Location
- London
I think the seller is right about it being an Arena. it looks identical to the one I used to own - right down to the mini-skirt style mudguards! Great bikes, very solid and robust. I couldn't use that as a rough commuter hack though, I'd have to strip it all down and rebuild it somewhere close to how it was when new. For me, the ideal short range commuter hack would be a 190's onwards BSO+ grade non-suspension frame MTB/Hybrid. Cheap enough to not be valuable, but enough build quality not to be an outright junk BSO. eBay is awash with £20-ish bikes in this category, many on BIN's at that price. Most of them have flat tyres from being laid up in someone's shed for years but are still perfectly usable with a little bit of TLC and basic maintenance. Don't buy a nice tidy bike for commuting, then you won't be so hacked off if it gets nicked or bashed up.
OP
OP
Binka
Über Member
- Location
- Lincoln, uk
Well I found out that Sheffield has a keyfob access cycle hub with cctv. So am keeping the bike there overnight, so far so good. I started off with a cheap £20 1970s 3 gear bike. But a combination of chrome rims/poor braking in the wet and 3 gears not being good enough for the hills I swapped it for my road bike. But have ordered a hybrid now.
Broadside
Guru
- Location
- Fleet, Hants
I had the same experience. Bought a £30 80’s road bike with chrome rims, left it unlocked outside various offices in Newbury overnight for 6 months but eventually changed it because the braking in the wet was so bad sometimes I couldn’t stop! Upgraded to a £20 old shambles of a hybrid with alu rims, left that unlocked in Newbury for a year and never had any trouble until I moved jobs. Sold the bike on for £20 :-)
recumbentpanda
Guru
While I can see the advantages, this has an anti-social element. Many of the bike racks at the main shopping end of my town are close the station, and totally clogged with rusting commuter bike, much to annoyance of me trying to do a bit of Saturday shopping, or any cyclist wanting to catch the train sans bike.
Save up and get a Brommie, it rides much nicer than any 35 quid knackered nag!
Save up and get a Brommie, it rides much nicer than any 35 quid knackered nag!
SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
- Location
- London
There's absolutely no relationship whatsoever between how much a bike cost to buy and how well they ride. It's all down to basic design and maintenance at the end of the day. My nicest bike cost me £10, and it's much better to ride on than any £1500+ Brompton ever could be, because it's got big wheels and stable handling, neither of which are Brompton features.
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recumbentpanda
Guru
Your response reminds me forcefully that I broke one of my own ‘golden rules’ of posting on web forums:
Never mention more than one point!
