Workplace tool/spares kit.

[summerdays]

Work supplied me with Jangro Mechanic's Wipes which seem pretty good at getting my hands clean.

What about bucket/sponge or wipes to clean down something before fixing it?

 

[Wolf04]

I still don't think it's worth going past the basics. most of the tools suggested won't be used and most people won;t know how to use them. you just need the bits and bobs for 'tactical' fixes. Esp. if your budget is 100 quid (Pump is a quarter of that for starters)

Tend to agree P repair stuff including some emergency tyre boots. A good track pump and a few spanners, allen keys and screwdrivers to tighten loose bits. Will solve most issues. Any more and your just competing with the LBS

 

[Tynan]

tyre boot with a LBS 5 minutes away?

 

[Wolf04]

tyre boot with a LBS 5 minutes away?

Fair enough even simpler then.

 

[gambatte]

Might have been mentioned before, no time to trawl thro'

Good addition to a cycling toolkit - 8 & 9 speed SRAM powerlinks?

 

[GrahamG]

I was in Bristol today Graham.

It's changed a lot since I was there last. Loads of bikes around. And just the cycle parking at the station puts Birmingham to shame.

I think we might join you down there in a couple of years.

It's proper hippyville compared to Brum and yet nowhere near as diverse (best description I've heard from a fellow Brummie is 'a bit caucasian'). I reckon 3/4 of the bikes live at the station for incoming commuters and the other 1/4 for those going out, it's crazy!
Only other thing is that it's very expensive compared to brum, rents aren't hugely greater but anyone mad enough to buy at the present time would be paying enormous amount. Council tax probably 10-20% higher too. Buses prohibitively expensive for such short journeys (fewer subsidies and they get stuck in traffic equivalent to London without bus lanes). More importantly £3 a pint is the standard
The positives just increase day by day though - bars with live music, bars where people don't think you're mad or 'some kind of poof' if you order a coffee after 6pm, loads of vege/wholefood shops, between the uni's & hospital's and posh birds the eye candy is outstanding, falafel king, lots of bike shops (including a workshop place that is almost as good as the harborne cycle surgery!), 100 miles closer to Devon & Cornwall, bike rides around Somerset levels/mendips or South Wales over the severn bridge or the Cotswolds to North and Wiltshire to east.

 

[Brock]

bars where people don't think you're mad or 'some kind of poof' if you order a coffee after 6pm

hmm They must be all mad or some kind of poofs then.

 

[summerdays]

It's proper hippyville compared to Brum and yet nowhere near as diverse (best description I've heard from a fellow Brummie is 'a bit caucasian').

(including a workshop place that is almost as good as the harborne cycle surgery!).

What bits of Bristol are you visiting ... some bits are very diverse, other bits ... well inbred (I was in one of those bits today and was suprised by the number of youf's on bikes - just meandering along on them, wrong side of the road, no brake levers/calipers etc, but a lot of bikes).

And where is this workshop that you worship? Just in case I haven't found it yet?

 

[GrahamG]

What bits of Bristol are you visiting ... some bits are very diverse, other bits ... well inbred (I was in one of those bits today and was suprised by the number of youf's on bikes - just meandering along on them, wrong side of the road, no brake levers/calipers etc, but a lot of bikes).

And where is this workshop that you worship? Just in case I haven't found it yet?

Well I'm in very prim and proper Sneyd Park! My travels on two wheels have taken me around Montpellier/St Pauls and a bit of Bedminster so that's pretty much the limit of my travels on the bike but also driving to band practice south of the river (can't remember the area - some of it looks a bit dicey whilst other bits further east towards the A38 seem nice)

The Bristol bike workshop is on Colston Street, just behind that Zero Degrees micro-brewery/pub place.

http://www.bikeworkshop.co.uk/

 

[summerdays]

The Bristol bike workshop is on Colston Street, just behind that Zero Degrees micro-brewery/pub place.

I only found that one last week when on the hunt for pannier bags though they didn't have in the one I was looking for but did like their Orblieb ones of course. Sneyd Park isn't going to be very ethnically diverse nor are the council estate areas, but I think most of the rest is, and there is a definate north/south of the river mentality.