P
Pyromancer
Guest
I live 10 minutes drive, and 30 minutes cycle, from my
office, and currently cycle about two days out of five. I
really enjoy the ride, even though it is right through Leeds
city centre on some decidedly dodgy routes, with maniac bus
drivers and suicidal pedestrians providing equal risks, even
in the middle of busy dual carriageways!
My current bike is a bog standard big clunky fixed-frame 100
quid ex-catalogue reject MTB, bought from Langsett Cycles in
Sheffield about six years ago and somewhat abused since - it
spent several years living outside, had the original saddle,
seatpost, and seatpost bolt nicked, and gained lots of evil
looking, but functionally harmless, rust on the chrome
sections of the handlebars. It now lives in a warm and dry
basement, chain oiled, saddle and post replaced, and the
traditional seat-mounting changed to one with an allen bolt
fixing to the saddle rails, which an LBS told me was a
better arrangement, and seems less prone to the saddle fore-and-
aft movements that have always plagued bikes I've ridden.
It's 21 speed, v-brakes, and does the job reasonably well,
despite two slow punctures requiring both wheels to be
pumped up again before each trip. I ordered full mudguards
and a back rack when I bought it, this meant the supplied
rear reflector was removed and nothing ever replaced
it. The gear cables are out of adjustment though I made
sure the brakes were OK before taking it out again. I
find I tend to ride mostly on the extremes of the
gearing - just using largest or smallest cog on the
cassette and using the three chainrings to keep the
cadence / speed ratio to something I'm happy with.
It has one major fault, in that the smallest sprocket on the
cassette has seemingly bent or broken off the end of the pin
which I assume keeps them all locked together, and this can
rotate on it's own. The other gears still work fine however
so I've not yet done anything about it and just use No6
instead of No7 as the fastest working gear.
I don't want to (can't, in fact) spend a lot of money on it,
but I want to fix it up so I can start riding to work the
majority of the time. I can already feel my stamina
improving from the restricted riding I'm doing now, having
lurked for a while in here I'm now trying to keep the pedals
spinning at a steady rate instead of the hill-heroics I used
to get up to, and it does seem to work.
I'm assuming I should junk the back cassette and get a new
one rather than messing about trying to repair it, I'm
also thinking of just replacing both tyres and tubes, and
then getting the index gears back into adjustment. I
gather getting rear cassettes off is a bugger of a job,
and I've never been big on upper body strength, it's all
in my legs from nearly 25 years of cycling, off and on,
esp as a teenager.
So I'm planning to take both wheels to the LBS that did me
the saddle, Drakes in Harehills, Leeds, and have them do the
tubes and cassette at the same time.
So, the questions: Anyone got any experience of this shop
and their service facilities? How much, roughly speaking,
should I expect to pay for these jobs? Anything else I
should be looking at doing to the bike?
I've had lots of bad experiences with cheap dynamos, so in
these days of cheap batteries and LED lamps I'm planning to
go the battery light route
- how much should I expect to pay for a cheap but functional
(as opposed to cheap and useless) system? I'm not fussed
about whether the lights are technically legal, given the
complete disregard everyone else round here on bikes shows
the law, I think jut having lamps which make me visible
will be welcomed by other road users and the police alike.
Long term, I've the frame of what was once a very expensive
Peugeot racer which I plan to slowly rebuild myself into a
really good bike - I'm planning to turn the basement into a
workshop for woodworking, and the bench will be handy for a
bit of bike work too, but for now I want to use the clunker
as a basic get-fit and get-to-work runabout.
All suggestions / comments / "get a real bike!" rants
welcome!
NP: (in my head) The "Big Bad Bicycle" song by PWEI.
--
- Pyromancer Stormshadow. http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk
<-- Pagan Gothic Rock! http://www.littlematchgirl.co.uk
<-- Electronic Metal! http://www.revival.stormshadow.com
<-- The Gothic Revival.
office, and currently cycle about two days out of five. I
really enjoy the ride, even though it is right through Leeds
city centre on some decidedly dodgy routes, with maniac bus
drivers and suicidal pedestrians providing equal risks, even
in the middle of busy dual carriageways!
My current bike is a bog standard big clunky fixed-frame 100
quid ex-catalogue reject MTB, bought from Langsett Cycles in
Sheffield about six years ago and somewhat abused since - it
spent several years living outside, had the original saddle,
seatpost, and seatpost bolt nicked, and gained lots of evil
looking, but functionally harmless, rust on the chrome
sections of the handlebars. It now lives in a warm and dry
basement, chain oiled, saddle and post replaced, and the
traditional seat-mounting changed to one with an allen bolt
fixing to the saddle rails, which an LBS told me was a
better arrangement, and seems less prone to the saddle fore-and-
aft movements that have always plagued bikes I've ridden.
It's 21 speed, v-brakes, and does the job reasonably well,
despite two slow punctures requiring both wheels to be
pumped up again before each trip. I ordered full mudguards
and a back rack when I bought it, this meant the supplied
rear reflector was removed and nothing ever replaced
it. The gear cables are out of adjustment though I made
sure the brakes were OK before taking it out again. I
find I tend to ride mostly on the extremes of the
gearing - just using largest or smallest cog on the
cassette and using the three chainrings to keep the
cadence / speed ratio to something I'm happy with.
It has one major fault, in that the smallest sprocket on the
cassette has seemingly bent or broken off the end of the pin
which I assume keeps them all locked together, and this can
rotate on it's own. The other gears still work fine however
so I've not yet done anything about it and just use No6
instead of No7 as the fastest working gear.
I don't want to (can't, in fact) spend a lot of money on it,
but I want to fix it up so I can start riding to work the
majority of the time. I can already feel my stamina
improving from the restricted riding I'm doing now, having
lurked for a while in here I'm now trying to keep the pedals
spinning at a steady rate instead of the hill-heroics I used
to get up to, and it does seem to work.
I'm assuming I should junk the back cassette and get a new
one rather than messing about trying to repair it, I'm
also thinking of just replacing both tyres and tubes, and
then getting the index gears back into adjustment. I
gather getting rear cassettes off is a bugger of a job,
and I've never been big on upper body strength, it's all
in my legs from nearly 25 years of cycling, off and on,
esp as a teenager.
So I'm planning to take both wheels to the LBS that did me
the saddle, Drakes in Harehills, Leeds, and have them do the
tubes and cassette at the same time.
So, the questions: Anyone got any experience of this shop
and their service facilities? How much, roughly speaking,
should I expect to pay for these jobs? Anything else I
should be looking at doing to the bike?
I've had lots of bad experiences with cheap dynamos, so in
these days of cheap batteries and LED lamps I'm planning to
go the battery light route
- how much should I expect to pay for a cheap but functional
(as opposed to cheap and useless) system? I'm not fussed
about whether the lights are technically legal, given the
complete disregard everyone else round here on bikes shows
the law, I think jut having lamps which make me visible
will be welcomed by other road users and the police alike.
Long term, I've the frame of what was once a very expensive
Peugeot racer which I plan to slowly rebuild myself into a
really good bike - I'm planning to turn the basement into a
workshop for woodworking, and the bench will be handy for a
bit of bike work too, but for now I want to use the clunker
as a basic get-fit and get-to-work runabout.
All suggestions / comments / "get a real bike!" rants
welcome!
NP: (in my head) The "Big Bad Bicycle" song by PWEI.
--
- Pyromancer Stormshadow. http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk
<-- Pagan Gothic Rock! http://www.littlematchgirl.co.uk
<-- Electronic Metal! http://www.revival.stormshadow.com
<-- The Gothic Revival.