CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
More spontaneous acclamation from the citizens for my big red bell this morning.
It's just like the one @greenroofer linked to, but like him I paid nowhere near that eye-watering price. The lever does bend if you go mental - I've had to twist it back into shape after every Pedal on Parliament.
Never did post an update about my brass Crane mini-bell. It's cracking - makes a surprisingly loud ding which just seems to ring on forever.
Certainly gets the attention of whoever I'm alerting to my presence (although I still had one guy shout that I should ring me bell before passing, despite the fact that I did from quite some distance away..)
Here is how I have the bell mounted on the Brompton:
and here is where my thumb gets to when I ring it:
With respect, my opinion is that I don't need to have my thumb gripping the handlebars tightly and a tight grip doesn't give any more control than a relaxed one.
The first time I went along the paths in Edinburgh a couple of months back I did not know what the correct etiquette was regarding bells. Until I went past 2 elderly women who loudly said of someone with no bell. Since then I ring it sometimes.
My bell is standard issue it has a thing you flick at the bell not brilliant. I sore on some U tube videos some people use air horns although useful for getting attention of a car if had not noticed you, would seem quite rude on the canal or shared paths I would imagine.
I find with my (steel) crane bell that you have to ring it from quite far back as it is VERY loud and sounds quite rude at close quarters ('get out of my way' rather than 'hello, just to let you know there's a bike behind you'). The brass one may be more polite. I have had a telling off for both ringing and not ringing my bell so I tend to ring it when the person ahead of me clearly hasn't seen me and is either older, with a dog, with children, or in a group spread out across the whole path (younger people tend to have earphones in so no real point, whereas it seems to be older people who are more bothered about bell ringing in general). Otherwise I just manoeuvre round as politely as I can, letting them get on with their day.
The Big Red Bell on my ratty hybrid is rapidly gaining cult status on the canal. Two open air smokers/drinkers/fisherman requested a re-ring at Hailes Quarry Park last night.
'Gonnae ring yer bell again mate?'
Ding-ding-ding-DONG-a-ding-a-ling!
Big toothless grins appeared and cans were raised in appreciation.
From that audio description I'm picturing some kind of large, cup-shaped bell suspended in a wheel (possibly towed in a trailer), which you release in a joyous peel.
PS: Towed? Looks horrible. "On tow", perhaps. But then I've been having weird moments with words recently. I had to look up "especially" becuase I convinced myself it wasn't a real word.
Ooh, I've just found Wikipedia's "List of heaviest bells"
@Darkerside
That word thing happens to me all the time. I also get a thing where I spell words in a totally crazy way and sit and look at them all puzzled. Sometimes my spelling is so odd that Google's 'Did you mean?' doesn't know what I meant. 'Eccentric' can be a nightmare.
I do have a trailer and I love the idea of an improvised towed gamelan. I shall investigate.
Good word with gamelan. I was hoping that there was some technical term for a standard church-style bell shape, but apparently not. We shall be forever adrift with confusion about bike pingers and ten-tonne cathedral clangers.
"Politition" was a good one from last year. My (much younger) cousin picked me up on it, with appropriate confusion that anyone could get it that wrong.
My bell, one of the wee standard black ones (the only one available in the LBS), is becoming an absolute pain. Every bump I go over (about 100 on a typical commute) sets it off, giving any cyclist/pedestrian within 50 yards a wake up...
Need to have a think about what to get next...
@paddyirish
My bell has taken to playing the opening two bars of the William Tell overture under its own steam as I start across the Slateford aqueduct every morning.
It is currently mounted vertically on the left for a thumb ring - I may try it horizontally on the right for an index finger ring. I think that should keep it a bit quieter.
The brass version of the Crane Suzu
@paddyirish, Does it look a bit like one of these? 
I have one which was heading to a similar fate as yours but was rescued by a small rubber band wrapped round the black plastic stalk at the top of the bell. The band has now been perished for years but the bell still works.
@fimm thanks for the pictures. I'd agree that I don't need to have my thumb gripping the handlebars tightly (although I find it reassuring on cobbled sections of the towpath) because I certainly used to manage ok by ringing my bell with my right thumb in between changing gears, but, given that it has no function on my hub gear bike, I feel that my relatively uncoordinated left thumb may as well be used for bell ringing, and that by making it as easy as possible I can concentrate more on cycling.
@Darkerside - you may enjoy both the OED's first definition for polititian, and the fact that your rendering was acceptable in the 15-16th centuries.
A schemer or plotter; a shrewd, sagacious, or crafty person. In later use also (esp. U.S. derogatory, influenced by sense A. 2b): a self-interested manipulator, whose behaviour is likened to that of a professional politician.
Robert
I took a punt on the Sustrans "large ding dong bell" because it was 'cheap' (£6), I was ordering from them anyway, and it looked similar to the bell from Amazon suggested by Greenroofer. Now that it has arrived I'm amazed by its size (80mm, as opposed to the 60mm bell from Amazon which probably would have seemed large in real life as it is) but decidedly unimpressed with the mounting versatility. It does have a great ring though so I will attempt to mount it and see how it shapes up.
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/shop/clothing-accessories/large-ding-dong-bell
@jdanielp
Wear your big bell with pride. I shall keep an ear out for a return carillon on our next meeting.
It fitted rather more satisfactorily than I had expected. It shall be unleashed on an unsuspecting public tomorrow.
I rather enjoyed my new bell this morning and feel like I will get over its size fairly quickly. In fact, given that it's silver and it's currently positioned with the shiny dome top pretty much facing backwards, it acts as a limited view rear-view mirror as well, which is a bit of an unexpected bonus. The sounds seemed to go down ok with most people, although it stopped one pedestrian in her tracks around Harrison Park... It appears to be the exact same style and huge size as IWRATS' big red bell.
It's a good looking bell, @jdanielp. I think the top half may be a bit tight though - the sounds was slightly muffled, like when a drummer takes a light grip on a cymbal. I've unscrewed mine a bit to let it ring freely.
"I've unscrewed mine a bit to let it ring freely"
Unscrew completely and add a sliver of paper, matchstick, etc. to stop it unwinding itself.
Thanks for the tips IWRATS and chdot. I will have a look at implementing those to improve the sound this evening.
This 'different' bell is on offer
http://www.velovitality.co.uk/collections/clearance/products/retro-disc-bell
Anyone used one?
Very modern and flat.
Vulpine the clothing brand put a link to an outlet selling the beautiful brass crane bell for £2.50 more than the flat one.
My trouble with all bells is the clamp is often too narrow for the tube. So ordering on line is an issue for me.
Isn't that one just a copy of the Sogreni bell?
http://sogreni.northernmakers.com/store/products/sogreni-bicycle-bell/
€47 though!
The torpedo has a bell hidden within its depths, so you operate it by pulling on a piece of string. It makes a traditional "tring! tring!" sound, which completely spoils the hi-tech aura of the rest of the machine. I sometimes think that it would be better with a "Warning! Torpedo approaching." announced in the voice of Stephen Hawking.
@Arellcat It might be made of modern carbon whiskers but the shape always reminds me of futuristic single-person bubblecars of yestercentury, for which a wobbly theremin-sounding bell would be appropriate.
I've just got myself a lovely new Pashley chrome ding-dong bell. It's a friendly sound, good to warn people of my approach without sounding aggressive. However, it spontaneously dings a lot on rough surfaces, especially cobbles. I've tried unscrewing the top a bit - that reduces the amount of dinging but doesn't eliminate it, and because it's loose the whole thing then rattles constantly. Any suggestions? I may have to go back to a less charming but more practical bell.
Try routes with smooth tarmac...
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