Now you have to put some even smaller panniers inside the Ortliebs in order to approach Pannierception.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting
Confessions of a Cycle Commuter
(1669 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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What you could do is replace your Ortliebs' top hooks with Arkel's system of hooks with sprung rotating wedges on the underside. I was pleased to discover early on that they work perfectly with an elephantine rack, as well as my lesser Blackburn EX1 and Tortec Transalp.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I forgot my front light for the first time ever, I still have rear 100 lumen light front and rear Aldi rechargeable lights. Last 3 miles from kirknewton to my house are complete darkness, so normally use by 300 lumen light. With the town front light very slow must be like cycling pre millennium in the dark before bright bike lights
Posted 6 years ago # -
Going into school this morning, another parent (who I don't know) commented that I was wearing long trousers today. I didn't realise that my attire was fair game for comments :-/
Admittedly I went to the parent teacher consultation yesterday in my lycra ( with shorts obviously ). Whilst there I had a good chat to the Head teacher who's house we go past on our commute every morning and often give a friendly wave to, about improving the cycle facilities at the school :-)
Meanwhile the littliest's snow boots didn't stand up to the wet snow this morning and had to make use of a radiator on arrival.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Had to cycle home last week when the trains were landslidded (landslud?) outside Winchburgh. Decided I'd "investigate" just how closed a "Road Closed" was. Turns out, quite closed - about 30m worth of dark pool which I nearly went headfirst into.
As I beat my cowardly retreat I was passed by a car heading towards the puddle, going very fast. I don't know if they deployed inflatables at the last minute... they didn't overtake me again coming back out.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@ dougal hahahaha
me and a friend down south regularly send 'road closed' pics to each other then investigate to see "just how closed a closed road really is".
Glad we are not alone.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Minto Street was closed last night. Fire brigade, police, ambulance, motor cars in unlikely places bits of motor car...always feels weird to cycle through the battlefield.
All gone today, just a pedestrian crossing pole lying on the pavement where it had been uprooted.
Posted 6 years ago # -
on my even more stop start commute today i did things i'm not proud of just because i didnt fancy the legal way.
inverkeithing rail bridge roadworks, red light (and its quite long these days ) leads you through the narrow roadworks cars usually get angry in the morning if you slow them up - so i mounted the pavement without dismounting
then over the bridge (ignoring all dismount signs there as always!) and through the usual chicanes , pauses at crossing from cycle lanes to road to cycle lanes and pedastrian crossings, yet another set of roadworks near Ferry Road - once again the pavement beckoned and once again i did not dismount
perhaps these are the reasons the cycling gods are displeased with me
it could also be having 0 hours sleep the past few days as there is a strange annoying noise in my flat i cannot locate and cannot be earplugged either!!!!
Posted 6 years ago # -
When you do your own bike maintenance, do make sure to check your work.
I had completed 0.2 miles of my commute this morning when I stopped, on a handily unsnowy parking space, to investigate a metallic knocking sound coming from the torpedo's front-left wheel. It was a different knocking noise from the spoke magnet clonking into the sensor, which was why I was concerned.
With the wheel cover removed I rapidly determined that a) the spoke magnet was fine, and b) the wheel was no longer secured on its axle, the central bolt having loosened itself completely, and not having gone missing only because of the wheel cover.
Yesterday evening I had the front suspension on both sides in bits (a two hour job) to sort the partially seized brake actuating arms. Those of you with Sturmey drums will know that these tend to be the weak spot, since they're the only place where dirt can reasonably accumulate. It was both disconcerting and dispiriting to perform a hard braking manoeuvre, and then find your brakes stuck on.
So thread the bolt back in finger tight, and ride home again, tick tick tick. Fortunately my sawn-off Scott multitool was just the right 'shorth' to fit the gap between bolt head and wheel well, and I was saved from dropping the strut to get to the wheel, a task involving two 13mm spanners and a certain amount of contortion that women undoubtedly find less desirable than men.
I was 20 minutes late into my commute but for the most part the traffic was still light as I crossed the city bypass.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Annoying as that sounds, it's rather a relief to learn that someone as mechanically competent as you does that sort of thing too (I regularly fail to tighten my back wheel nuts properly so that as soon as I'm putting enough pressure on the pedals - generally trying to nip into a gap on a roundabout - it jams against the chain stays and I come to an ignominious halt).
Also confirms my mantra: never ignore a new noise
Posted 6 years ago # -
never ignore a new noise
I would add "always stop the bike to investigate source" to mine. I have tried to diagnose a new noise while pedaling. Trying to look at your back wheel while in motion isn't easy. It ended up with a trip off the edge of the road into a (quite solid) bush on a fully-loaded tourer.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Since my mechanical competence does not really extend further than fixing a flat, I have pretty much learned to live with the fact that the (disc) brake on my bike (which has to be kept outdoors) seizes up the rear wheel if it's been below freezing overnight (weirdly, it tends to work fine when you test it leaving the house, but try to brake after three minutes on the road and you're screwed), so I just take it slow, get on the towpath rather than the road and rely on the front brake. Today this plan nearly collided with reality in the shape of some unusually chilled-out pigeons under the Yeaman Place bridge — I did manage to stop just short of the pigeons, who just shrugged and walked away, but it was a close call.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The re-cycling cycle in full effect today:
Donated some bits & bobs to the Bike Station the other month. Then I broke a saddle rail on my good saddle, so I moved the older saddle off the mountain bike onto my "main" bike, and the older-older saddle off the "pub bike" onto the mountain bike.
Then I realised that the reason I couldn't find the spare older-older-older saddle I wanted to put on the pub bike was that it had been in the bag of accoutrements I donated.
So today I nipped round to the Bike Station at lunch time to buy a new second hand saddle.
I'm not sure if this is how donations are meant to work, but £2 IS a very reasonable price for retrieval...
Posted 6 years ago # -
I could have lease-lent you your original Brookes B17.
Posted 6 years ago # -
A generous offer but it seems they don't gel well with my sitting area.
(Have you plans to fit it to anything or is it part of a holding pen of saddles that await final determination of their rightness?)
Posted 6 years ago # -
I bought it off you cos I was mulling the Ultimate Commuter. Not built it yet so sitting under the stairs.
Did you see the Cotic Roadrat with the Rohloff hub when you were in? Ruined by the clip-on drops but....
Posted 6 years ago # -
I was in a rush so I hardly even registered the presence of bikes! (And now I shall google Cotic Roadrat so I can pretend I know what exactly that would look like.) (Side note to @Iain McR - I think I have imposter syndrome about cycling too...)
Posted 6 years ago # -
Oh! Now I want one. But yes, with flat bars.
Posted 6 years ago # -
> I'm not sure if this is how donations are meant to work, but £2 IS a very reasonable price for retrieval...
I once read an article which suggested a novel alternative to conventional storage: setting yourself up as an Amazon merchant and sending all your stuff to their warehouse to be offered for sale at unreasonably high prices. Sounds like you've just come up with the altruistic version of this model - as you say, £2 isn't bad for a few months' storage!
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hmm. Now looking at some of my other junk with a thoughtful eye!
Posted 6 years ago # -
There's a Roadrat owner who gets the train between Linlithgow and Edinburgh. I once also ended up sitting next to him at an Unthanks gig in the Queens Hall. He has no drop bars.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Every few months I, for reasons which are never very clear, decide to cycle up Kirk Brae. I did this today, on the heavy bike. Once again, I realised that this was a stupid idea.
Posted 6 years ago # -
My faith in humanity has been increased. Yesterday I picked up my bag to go home and discovered my lock in it.
Thankfully my bike was still on the rack outside where I had left it many hours earlier.
Now all we have to do is find a way to get those same humans to control the vehicles on the road.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I'm a bus commuter today. Either this is a revolting coldy flu thing or the nascent abscess a dental x-ray found last week has decided those antibiotics weren't good enough for it. (This had better go away by Sunday.)
Posted 6 years ago # -
Punctured today after going down the B7008 from A70 to West Calder. Road is closed as surface being repAired so loads of areas where top layer scraped off so you bump up and down. Repaired near the dog trust place en route to Woolfords. Valve retention nut locked on to tube of valve (frozen and salted). So added five mins waiting for cold glue to bond with cold rubber. My pal Tom sliced his finger open by running it around the inside of the tyre and catching it on the sharp shard of metal had given me the puncture. Schoolboy error (I would have done this myself if he hadn't beaten me to it). Splint made of box inner tube came in until apple pie bakery of Carnwath where those kind people gave him a plaster. Blue industrial plaster. Tom then punctured on descent to Boston cottage on the A 70. His was back wheel too but no frozen valve retention nut so much quicker.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Got classic middle of tyre puncture coming home on Friday. Actually went pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft as the wheel turned. I accelerated and made it the last 100m before the tyre became flacid.
Fixed it this morning and in the cold light of day oh my days the drive train was filthy.
Small obsidian hand-axe had made it through the Scwalbe Land Cruiser's thin Kevlar layer. They are good hybrid tyres but they don't last forever.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@ Gembo cold glue to bond with cold rubber ?
Don't you use those gummy patches? They are ace.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@iainmcr - skabs?
Illustrious leader gave me them.
The puncture repair kit standad issue lost its stickiness due to the cold.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Skabs yes*.
*Other makes are available.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Yesterday was my first commute in over a fortnight thanks to a particularly vicious lurgy. Minutes after leaving the office I felt something was odd and I could hear an unwelcome noise. My free hub then pretty much disintegrated!
I flipped my wheel to the fixed gear but it really wasn't a comfortable experience on the road.
Popped in to the Bike Smith at haymarket as I was passing, but unfortunately he had none in stock. On to Cycle Republic who only had fairly expensive sounding BMX ones. The mechanic thought he saw some old stock kicking about - he was right thankfully. They fitted a new (old) shimano one for £20. The last few miles home were a wee bit less frought!
The old hub had done about 9/10 thousand km. Was that a reasonable lifespan?
Posted 6 years ago #
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