respect for cycling commuter at work...

(Tom Keats) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Doctor Phibes) writes:
How many times have you returned to where you thought you placed your
bike in a secure location only to find someone had "adjusted" your
gears or worse had moved your bike?

A few times.

When it happens, usually a quick glance around reveals a nearby
mother orbited by her inquisitive, energetic little tyke. I guess
they like to click my top-mount shifters, ring the bell, honk the
horn, and yank on the toe-clip straps.

When I've had an inquisitive tyke interested in messing with my bike,
and I'm around, I usually get down to the kid's (and the bike's)
eyelevel, and tell the kid that s/he may only touch parts of my bike
with my (and the parent's) permission. I name the parts that I know
(which isn't a huge list, probably fine for a small kid), and do my
best to show how the different parts work.

"Here's the brakes. Follow the brake cable and see where it goes. See
how it goes up here? Now, I'll press here, and you see what happens to
the brake back here. OK, can you see where the brake goes for the
front wheel? What do you think will happen when I press here? Right!"
I'll show how the pedals make the wheels go around, and how the
derailer works, if the kid wants to know.

The kid usually will have oceans of patience and interest -- it's
usually mom who is freaked out about the kid getting greasy, worried
about taking up my time, and has better things to do.

It's worth it for me, though. Otherwise, where's that next generation
of mechanics (not just bike) going to come from?

Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky )

Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Singing with you at: http://www.tiferet.net/
Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
http://bookcrossing.com/friend/Cpetersky

When I've had an inquisitive tyke interested in messing with my bike,

Good post Claire.

In article ,
(Claire Petersky) writes:

It's worth it for me, though. Otherwise, where's that next generation
of mechanics (not just bike) going to come from?

That's great, Claire. But my problem is, it always happens to
me when I'm not there; I just discover the aftermath later,
when I return to my parked bike. That's nothing new, though.
Everything always happens when I'm not looking. Life is
full of surprises.


cheers,
Tom

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"Tom Keats" wrote in message
...

But my problem is, it always happens to
me when I'm not there; I just discover the aftermath later,
when I return to my parked bike. That's nothing new, though.
Everything always happens when I'm not looking. Life is
full of surprises.

Perhaps it is the way you are parking your bike. At every university I have
attended, bicycle parking was at a premium. I learned the hard way that
parking in a manner that took up more than one space always resulted in a
bike that had received a serious fiddling. The most common bad parking
practice among hoop racks is straddling the bike over the center pole so
that it fills the space between the hoops, making it darn difficult to reach
the locks for those hoop users. I've seen bikes with every quick-release
part loose, moved, or turned around backwards (I'm glad they didn't flat my
tires when they did it to me). Once I started parking with the rear wheel in
the rack, taking up just one space, my problems disappeared.

-Buck

In article ,
"Buck" j u n k m a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m writes:

Perhaps it is the way you are parking your bike.

Maybe. Whenever I've found my bike has been fiddled-with,
it's been locked to a signpost, streetlamp or some other
item, because of a lack of nearby bike racks.

At every university I have
attended, bicycle parking was at a premium. I learned the hard way that
parking in a manner that took up more than one space always resulted in a
bike that had received a serious fiddling.

grin Bike racks around here are generally rarely occupied.
If I'm the first one there (as is typically the case), I'll
lock it to the far side of the rack, preferably onto the thickest
available part of the rack. Often that means outboard of the rack,
which leaves the rest of the rack and lots of room for subsequent
bikes. I tend to automatically default to LIFO wrt parking in
racks, although I'm not really sure if it should be LIFO or FIFO.
LIFO just "feels more right" to me. Another thing I have to
deal with is a bunch of sticky-outy stuff on my fork -- old style
canti brake arms, and headlight.

As everybody knows by now, I've got the widest handlebar in
the world. So if a bike rack is occupied, I'll often shine
it on and resort to using a nearby parking meter or some other
thing, even if there's still a space in the rack. I generally
don't subscribe to the "if it don't fit, force it" school
of thought. And I hate getting handlebars entangled.


cheers,
Tom

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