Bike shops

dorothy

There's an Evans bike shop in Crouch End, next to Marks and Spencers, that's just opened. I'm not such a fan of the place, but it makes a change for Two Wheels Good. I went in there a while ago and asked if they had a coffee cup holder that I could put on my handle bars. They just looked incredulous and said it wasn't a thing. It is a thing though and I've got one now.

ellieT

I can very strongly recommend Cloud 9 Cycles in Camden - not far from the big Sainsbury's www.cloud9cycles.com - set up recently by two enthusiasts, they are incredibly helpful, reasonably priced and the best part open till about 10pm so very easy to drop by mid-week if like me you are at work past 5pm!!

Mirandola

Any actual second hand bike shops? I'd rather not go to Brick Lane as I'd feel odd buying a stolen bike when my last one was nicked.

dorothy

I passed this place <http://www.lock-7.com/>; on Saturday, on the towpath, going up to Hoxton, was full of hispters eating Chorizo stew but they do second hand bikes and it's a nice ride.

wideboy

For a revitalized bike back from the brink, try <a href="http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/index/environment/rubbish-recycling/recycling/recycling-bikes.htm">Walthamstow Bike Recycle</a>

"Recycled bikes are available for members of the public to purchase on the first Saturday of each month between 1-3pm, prices start from £45. Children's bikes are also available from £20."

Nothing over £100. All sorts there.

DW100

I went to Lock 7 on Saturday too - they helped me change my handlebars for free. It's very trendy round there - lots of fixed chains and no helmets. But it's a lovely cycle down the canal and round Victoria Park. You can also cycle up the Greenway and past the Olympic site if you're feeling particularly energetic. Here's a map:

http://www.walklondon.org.uk/uploads/File/sections/cr%2014%20map.pdf

There's an OK second hand bike shop near Mornington Crescent http://www.camdencycles.co.uk/. My friend bought an old road bike from there and he loved it until it got stolen.

commissar17

Am I the only one who thinks bikes should be banned? They're a bloody menace to both motorists (for whom roads were built) and pedestrians (the designated users of pavements). If people really want to gyrate their lycra-clad legs in repetitive, unnatural ways -- and then claim to feel better for the experience -- may I suggest kinky sex as a less dangerous alternative? I was recently run down on the pavement outside Tesco by a pre-teen terrorist riding a BMX. If I'd seen the little bastard coming, I would have stuck my umbrella between the spokes of his front wheel, flipped him over and lectured his comatose brain on civic responsibility -- which means the obligation to walk, drive, or take the bus or Tube.

checkski

Quite right, Steve. The most important category of person in the street should be the pedestrian, simply because at one time or another that includes all of us. Even the queen walks occasionally (I once saw her coming out of a small newspaper shop in Upper St - true!), but several streetites CANNOT use a bike, even if they wanted too - the old, the very young, the frail.

The needs of the ambient biped should therefore take priority, i.e. public transport - and pavements. Why did they give away half the pavement to the occasionally seen cyclist, in Lower SGR?

As for the selfish sods who cycle any old how, any old where: have you ever seen one taken to task by the Old Bill? No. They are too busy chasing the smokers of Archway - nicht wahr, Kommisar?

Mike.

Ali

Commissar Is the issue lycra or pavement cycling. I assume that the pre teen wasn't wearing lycra or you would have noticed him ? Your comments on lycra prompted me to have little survey this morning. I cycled into work approx 15kms and only saw one person wearing lycra which really surprised me as I had assumed there is a lot of it about. One point which is really visible is the number of cyclist there are on the roads. On my route quite often at traffic lights there are around 25 cyclist and say 6 cars with one person in each. Road space needs to be democratised and the cars lanes reduced !

ADGS

The problem isn't cycles, it's irresponsible cyclists. Many of whom are just arseholes with no sense of the rights of others, but some of whom are forced into bad behaviour by irresponsible drivers, themselves also a threat to pedestrians (cf thread on the dangerous crossing). And then, of course, there does exist the irresponsible pedestrian - walking two abreast with buggies, randomly stopping, or stood on the left of an escalator. No mode of transport can be blamed, because whatever mode of transport is used, arseholes will find a way to be arseholes.

commissar17

Ganz richtig, Genosse Checkski!

I like the expression 'ambient bipeds', by the way, Mike, but -- as one of N4's many resident pedants -- I'm wondering whether that shouldn't be 'ambULANT bipeds'. Ambulant = MOVING, usually on foot (Latin verb 'ambulare') but also in a motor vehicle (eg. AMBULAnce) or a pram (perAMBULAtor). Ambient, by contrast, signifies something relating to the ENVIRONMENT one finds oneself in (ambient temperature, the ambiance of a restaurant, und so weiter).

By the way, have you heard the joke regarding 1381? Q. "Who led the Pedants' Revolt?" A. "Which Tyler?" Fortunately, bad jokes don't get you arrested as quickly as dropping your fag butts on the pavement within the hallowed precincts of LBI.

Steve

Ali

Does one of you compile crosswords for a well know daily paper ?

checkski

Right again, Hairy Kommissar. Pedants of the world unite. Ambulant, not ambient, of course! My shame will make it hard for me to look you in the beard. I could try to persuade you that since bipeds are everywhere they are also perforce ambient... but I know that won't wash, so I'll bugger off while the going is good. on my two pins, natch.

TWO LEGS, GOOD, TWO WHEELS, BAD! (Buses and trains also rather nice).

PS. Have just checked my spelling of Kommissar. It's correct - but it means 'police inspector'!

checkski

PPS. I'm sure of one thing, though: the joke was execrable, although I did smile indulgently. Bad jokes - good; good jokes - better.

commissar17

Thanks for grovelling before my almighty facial hair, Checkski. Actually, in the interests of unity and community solidarity, I'm almost prepared to accept your get-out 'argument' re the two AMBs -- particularly as my beard has temporarily disappeared at the hands of a (non-cycling) barber.
I'm very depressed that you didn't like my Peasant's Revolt joke, though, Mike. Fellow EFL teachers adore it, but that probably says more about us as a group than about the joke.

Steve

PS. Commissar vs. Kommissar? You're almost correct (wenn wir nur von Deutsch, und nicht Russisch, sprechen wollen) -- police SUPERINTENDANT, though, rather than Inspector. The 'C' word is, however, the accepted English transliteration for the post held both by cabinet ministers and by military political officers in early Soviet Russia. The 17 (as in 1917) at the end of my monicker is no coincidence.

tosscat

If we're talking about banning things, how about your spoke poking umbrellas c17? They're held at exactly eye high for some of us, and talk about inconsiderate use...

miss annie

Not only do people hold them at an inconsiderate height but they are also not familiar with correct umbrella protocol when passing another umbrella user.
If you are pocket sized, like me, you dip your umbrella downwards to pass by, if you are life sized you raise your umbrella. This should prevent the jousting for position that can sometimes happen.

commissar17

OK, tosscat. Good point. Umbrellas are out, as should be any short person carrying one (I'm tall enough to sympathise with your plight). But I didn't happen to have a three-foot piece of dowling on me and I'd accidentally left my Tazer, CS gas spray, hand grenade and pet tiger at home. Seriously, though, pavement cyclists -- whatever their age -- rank only slightly higher in my estimation than crack dealers, estate agents, private landlords, members of the royal family and those slugs that left a slimy trail on my dear Auntie Ethel's designer carpet last winter.

commissar17

miss annie: I'm with tosscat on this one. In the same way that there are minimum height restrictions on rides at the various theme parks our offspring used to enjoy before they became addicted to computer games, there ought to be limits on who can carry an umbrella. Mandatory licensing, perhaps, by public servants equipped with a tape measure? Regular check-up visits by the Health and Safety executive? I remember the era of pac-a-macs (complete with hood). Then there were those separate, plastic rain hoods with a nice floral pattern. Those were the days!

sincers

I object to the bike ban. I agree with the pervasive nature of arseholes arguement, but those opposed to cycling should consider what would happen if everyone - right now - who were sat on a bicycle, were suddenly alone at the wheel of their own car...nobody would be going anywhere! Us cyclists - lycra clad or otherwise - also occasionally walk down pavements and hate pre-teen street urchins who use them as a cycle paths as much as anyone else. On that subject, dowel through spokes is much less preferable to crow bar to head.

commissar17

I recently spent some time in Pula, Croatia. In the suburbs of this beautiful Roman town -- Where James Joyce wrote most of Ulysses -- there's a bicycle training centre for velocophiles of all ages. Round and round they all go, ecstatic smiles on their faces, whizzing time and time again past the same magnificent pine trees and the same foothills of the same spectacular mountains. These cyclists are clearly at their happiest going round in circles, avoiding contact with real people and the real world. Just recalling this makes me revise my opinion that London bike-users should face a blanket ban. Instead, they should be subject to mandatory relocation to specially-constructed 'bicycle training centres' in natural beauty spots. Siberia would be good, but I'm not sure negotiations with the Russian government would be too easy. Apparently, the Russian prez and PM are both bike-loving weirdos. How about the Lake District, with the emphasis on 'Lake'? Glug, glug, glug...!

Ali

Visiting the shipyards ?

commissar17

Actually, Ali, we DID visit the shipyards as well, where some industrial action was being planned against the even fuller 'liberalisation' of terms and conditions. I've also maintained close links with great, class-conscious trade union friends in Serbia, and -- Aha! -- none of them cycles. Point proven, I think. The Yugoslav version of socialism was never something I, personally, put on a pedastal. Nonetheless it beat the current situation (where the supposed local 'currency', the Kuna, rates a poor fourth in hoteliers', bartenders' and shopkeepers' eyes. They'd rather you passed them the euro, the dollar or the pound -- in that order. I digress, but it seems I'm allowed to. As 'bike shop' threads go, this one is proving to have lost both of its wheels (not to mention its handlebars).

andy

There aren't many communist cliches that haven't been hit yet. We started with some lovely conversations about at a peace party and before you know it, you've got arbitrary law-making, fruit-based ad hominem guilt by association, gulags and Siberia.

Ali

The shipyard is quite impressive because of the very large structures ie the ships and it is in the middle of town, must of been what it was like up North before it all became uncompetitive

Papa

To dangerously flirt with going back on topic. I 'll cast a vote for Finsbury Cycles. Had an unfortunate incident where four of my back spokes got ripped out (not by a deftly wielded vigilante umbrella of justice, but a spanner that fell out of a bag into them). Took the wheel in, which they pointed out had now gone egg shaped. It was already an almost brand new £60 wheel and I wasn't looking forward to the cost of a new one. Instead they stripped it down, rebuilt it, gave it back good as new in a day and charged me £25. I have a suspicion a rebuilt wheel for £25 would not have been the outcome had I gone to a trendy bike shop.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Ali

They completely rebuit the power chain and bottom bracket for about £70 incuding parts on my bike. They are very nice

annalou

Another vote for the lovely men at Finsbury Cycles, they are really great and very patient with me when I pop in on an almost weekly basis for a spare wheel nut or a bit of brake adjustment.

I bought a beautiful Giant road bike from them last summer which they ordered in for me specially (took 2 days) after the useless and patronising customer service I'd received in Cycle Surgery at Spitalfields. They are aces.

commissar17

This bike shop thread has now become silly -- people are talking about bike shops! I'm off!