CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Questions/Support/Help

Bad office bikerack etiquette?

(33 posts)
  • Started 12 years ago by kaputnik
  • Latest reply from gembo
  • This topic is not resolved

12

  1. kaputnik
    Moderator

    So here is the script.

    The bikeracks at work are wheelbenders that alternate low wheelbender - not so low wheelbender - low wheelbender etc. If you have a tyre about 2" wide, you can wedge that in there, but if you have anything slim (like a x25) then the bike rests against the spokes. I don't like this, as bike spokes were not designed to take the weight of the bike pushing against 1 or 2 of them from the side and if some clumsyclutz of a workman / driver / cyclist was to knock the bike, I'd probably end up with bent/broken spokes and/or a buckled rim.

    No worries, I have a neat way of leaning the bike against the rack using the non-drive side crank and part of the bike rack that holds the wheelbenders together as a chock to stop the bike rolling out of the frame.

    However, recently I've noticed that someone has been re-positioning my bike every day, putting the front wheel into the wheelbender and leaning it against the spokes.

    Now I don't know if they think they're being helpful or if they think I'm taking up too much room. Personally I don't think I am, my bike is considerably narrower than most of the full suspension MTBs that come into the office, with extra width handlebars and non-bike-stacking-friendly bar ends, and in my preferred position it is c. 1" to the right of where it would be if it was in the wheelbender.

    Anyway, do you think it's bad form to move someone else's bike from where it is parked, if it isn't either blocking someone in / taking up an antisocial amount of room etc.

    I considered putting a note on my bike saying DON'T MOVE IT then realised I could just start using the cheap combination lock again to stop it being shifted.

    Oh and there is no shortage of spare racks at work, we don't have a very large number of committed cyclists, and I recognise most of them (and their bikes) and they're not to blame.

    Also - does one have more dibs on the bike rack closer to the locker room if one is a "more committed" cyclist who commutes come rain, hail, wind or snow vs. the occasional once-a-week summercyclist?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. Instography
    Member

    Wouldn't personally move someone's bike unless it was lying sprawled on the pavement having been badly locked with a coiling cable. I'd leave a polite note saying I'd deliberately left it this way with my phone number asking to be contacted if it needs to be moved.

    Spaces are first come, first served unless you're the managing director ;-)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. crowriver
    Member

    Aye, but some folk like to 'reserve' what is allegedly 'their' rack by leaving a D-lock shackled to it... I have no hesitation in moving those out of my way if need be, but I would not move or touch someone else's bike unless it was blocking the way, or there was only one space left and I couldn't fit mine in without shifting theirs a bit.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. justsitting
    Member

    I always move the D-Locks that are left behind, but would only move the handlebars or maybe slightly straighten a bike to allow access to the other side of the rack. But NO on the movement into those horrible racks that you describe that makes your bike feel all floppy and vulnerable.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. Morningsider
    Member

    This is very bad form - I would never move someone's bike (unless its fallen over) without speaking to the owner first. I think it is acceptable to tweak a handlebar to get into an empty space, but that's all.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. Nelly
    Member

    Really bad form,

    Somebody was messing with my hotel shower caps a few weeks ago, and I was raging......until I found it was a buddy having a laugh.

    n.b. You could just park it in one of those ENORMOUS holes in the road in front of your office.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. gembo
    Member

    My bike was moved tonight but no big deal as I had wedged it into the only available space in a very crowded shed. I think I know who did it but will consult with recombodna's spies. I have long cable which provides more options than d lock

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. kaputnik
    Moderator

    @Nelly I never go that way, prefer chancing the 2-lanes-changes-to-3-lanes-changes-to-1-lane mess that is the South Gyle Broadway.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. Uberuce
    Member

    Perhaps find someone who can draw(dunno if you know anyone like that) and suggest they make a picture of an unhappy bike with sore spokes from the wheelbenders, and then a Kappily smiling one in the aforedescribed position you prefer.

    Affix said artwork to bike.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. fimm
    Member

    I don't know that people who leave D-locks attached to racks are necesarily "claiming" that rack - I used to do this (until my D-lock died) because I didn't need to take it anywhere else. If someone else put a bike on the stand to which my lock was attached, I just moved the lock.

    OP is it possible that the mysterious bicycle mover thinks you don't know how to use the wheel-bender stand? (I think I'd go for the cheap combination lock option if I was concerned that my bike would get damaged.)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. Dave
    Member

    Pretty bad form. I'm not shy about moving people's bikes to get access, but adjusting them for no reason is a bit like going round inflating tyres to whatever you think they should be, or some other sinister invasion.

    Tie it on and leave a stern note!

    I don't know that people who leave D-locks attached to racks are necesarily "claiming" that rack - I used to do this (until my D-lock died) because I didn't need to take it anywhere else. If someone else put a bike on the stand to which my lock was attached, I just moved the lock.

    +1, our racks are covered in locks when everybody's gone home, but you just put your bike wherever you like and move your lock. Seems a shame to have to carry a heavy lock around (I waited for a decent sale and bought a dedicated work lock a few years back - means the spare key can live in my desk, too).

    Posted 12 years ago #

  12. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    "+1, our racks are covered in locks when everybody's gone home, but you just put your bike wherever you like and move your lock. Seems a shame to have to carry a heavy lock around (I waited for a decent sale and bought a dedicated work lock a few years back - means the spare key can live in my desk, too)."

    +2 - hotstanding? hotlocking?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  13. recombodna
    Member

    "I think I know who did it but will consult with recombodna's spies." lolz! My spies wouldn't dare move bikes!!!

    The only time I would move someones bike is when it's lying on the pavement still locked to a lamp post and people would rather walk over it than pick it up. Like the woman I saw trying to push a pram over a fallen bike last week.......

    Posted 12 years ago #

  14. AKen
    Member

    Leaving work one day, I discovered that someone had locked their bike to the office bike-rack and also managed to ptu their lock round MY bike as well. Now that's bad etiquette....

    Posted 12 years ago #

  15. wingpig
    Member

    Combination lock plus Post-It® with "don't make me go in there" or similar until you can draw something more complicated. I haven't had to regularly use wheeltwisters since I was based in a different building, but then always just leant against one of the rain-cover support pillars so that there was something solid to chain the frame to rather than just something flexible to which to attach the rim. On the current building's car-park's Sheffield stands the most I've ever had to do is spend a few minutes threading a helmet along a lock so that the other half of a stand was rendered usable.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  16. alibali
    Member

    ..our racks are covered in locks when everybody's gone home..

    At Linlithgow station I've noticed a trend to park D locks on the roof frame of the cycle park rather than on a cycle support loop.

    More convenient for everyone and I'm sure it would catch on if someone started it.

    No such nicety if you have to park your bike under the stairs though. Everybody moves everyone elses bike as required. LIke living in the olden days, really...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  17. PS
    Member

    Never rub another man's rhubarb.

    I try to avoid even touching someone else's bike on a rack unless it is absolutely necessary. You never know where they've been. ;o)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  18. DaveC
    Member

    I find the 'James Bond, For You're Eyes Only, White Lotus Esprit' method soon stops those who want to meddle with my bikes. I say 'Bikes' as I find the bits of blown up bike and body all messed up together make riding it again difficult and repulsive and so I have to buy another bike. Fixes thr N+1 excuse with the wife though!

    Otherwise I'd just lock it in place Andy and then the 'someone' won't be able to use the wheel bender.

    Our bike locker room is open to the public but hidden under the St James Center and only visited by security zapping their cards on the security sensor once an hour. Its a warm large room, but it grinds on me when they leave the light on and door wide open so visiting delivery people can look in and see bikes, which fortunatley and locked to Sheffield Staples.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  19. Uberuce
    Member

    The one downside of the rack at work is that the outer row doesn't shelter your bike from the rain if the wind is westerley, which it usually is, whereas the inner row keeps it dry but makes it almost impossible to push out without shoogling someone else's handlebars if not entire bike.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  20. DaveC
    Member

    Shoogling... Shuggling... My 5 yr old son has started using this term. Is it an East coast Scotland term?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  21. Instography
    Member

    Mainstream Scots. As in, "yer jaicket's oan a shoogly peg".

    Posted 12 years ago #

  22. kaputnik
    Moderator

    @DaveC yes shoogly = shaky. To shoogle is to shake.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  23. alibali
    Member

    shoogle [ˈʃʊgəl] Dialect chiefly Scot
    vb
    to shake, sway, or rock back and forth
    n
    a rocking motion; shake
    [from dialectal shog, shug; apparently related to German schaukeln to shake]
    shoogly adj

    Widely understood by Geordies too, I think, though that could be the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet connection.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  24. DaveC
    Member

    Every day is a School Day!! :-) Thanks guys and galls.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  25. Roibeard
    Member

    Shoogle - Also "to force" as in "use the Force, Luke".

    At least according to my kids, who play Lego Star Wars without ever having seen the filums[1].

    Robert
    [1] used in Norn Iron for "movie"

    Posted 12 years ago #

  26. gembo
    Member

    Shooglenifty - now they were a band, back when being in a band was a job for a man (trouble funk reference from Alex cox film Repo Man)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  27. RJ
    Member

    OK - what etiquette for office bike-rack squatters/lon-stayers? How thick does the dust have to get before it's acceptable to be sufficiently brassed off to want to do something?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  28. Uberuce
    Member

    Contact The Bike Station for their standard letter that you put on the bike.

    It says, in legalese, that in two weeks time they're sending the boys raaaaaahnd. If no-one objects in that time, the boys cut the lock off and someone gets a bike for the price of three nights on the ale.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  29. kaputnik
    Moderator

    @RJ one of my neighbours has started a campaign to rid our stair of the abandoned bikes and put up a nice note and tied a piece of red ribbon to each bike, asking it be removed if the bike is owned by someone in the stair.

    Cheekily, one has been removed off an old white and purple giant road bike at the bottom of the pile which has never moved in 18 months. I might equally-cheekily send that one to the Bike Station too :)

    There nothing wrong with active/working bikes parked (considerately) in the stair, but we've not much room and the ones that have been there for 2 years+ and the owners either don't care or don't want them, well as far as I'm concerned it's open season.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  30. Kenny
    Member

    I don't know that people who leave D-locks attached to racks are necesarily "claiming" that rack - I used to do this (until my D-lock died) because I didn't need to take it anywhere else. If someone else put a bike on the stand to which my lock was attached, I just moved the lock.

    Yep, I leave my very heavy kryptonite lock on the bike racks at work so I don't have to carry it back across Edinburgh every day. Doesn't mean I "own" that rack or are attempting to claim it is mine, and if people thought that was what I was doing, then they are just plain wrong.

    Posted 12 years ago #

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