To Cambridghe cyclists

[Geraint Jones]

[email protected] wrote: ( > Some of your bikes are a disgrace. Rusty chains galore and
horrible ) > squeaking, clanking and squealing from wheels, brakes and mudguards. ( ) It's an anti
theft technique, I understand. Your bike needs to be less ( desirable than the bike next door, in a
competitive field. Forty years ) ago when I was a student (er, in London) it seemed to be quite a
status ( symbol in Oxbridge to have a ***really*** decrepit bike. With such a ) bike, even if their
bike did get stolen, Oxbridge students didn't care.

I think this is the point to point at

http://www.oxfordstudent.com/2003-06-12/culture/2

 

[Daniel Auger]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Jeremy Parker wrote:

> > I spent some time in Cambridge today and have some observations for you.
> >
> > Some of your bikes are a disgrace. Rusty chains galore and horrible squeaking, clanking and
> > squealing from wheels, brakes and mudguards.
>
> After having spent a quarter of a century in the USA, I was interested in making another visit
> to Cambridge to see whether it would have the same bikes, just a quarter of a century older, or
> new bikes.
>
> The old bikes do seem to have gone to that place in the sky where all bad bikes go, (the Cam?) and
> the present day bikes seem to be less antique than they used to be. Is that because students are
> more affluent; because bikes are less rugged than they used to be; because they look newer, no
> longer being universally coloured black? I don't know.

I think the standard "student issue" is the nintey-nine pound "Integra" complete with knobbly tyres,
a cheap-but-worthless D-lock and - often but not always - a complete ignorance of the highway code.
The bicycle will not be maintained at all, because the need for this has not occured to the owner.

Some of the old bikes do exist - they cost a lot more than a second hand mountain bike - and can be
quite hard to find. A lot of them still have their original owners. ;-)

--
Daniel Auger - [email protected] (Please remove Granta to get a valid address.)

 

[Just Zis Guy]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 17:37:05 +0100, Daniel Auger <[email protected]> wrote:

>Some of the old bikes do exist - they cost a lot more than a second hand mountain bike - and can be
>quite hard to find. A lot of them still have their original owners. ;-)

I have seen one in use, still with the original owner perched on it. Sir David Money-Coutts (for it
was he) on the Solid Rust Bicycle. Fair play, he rode a prodigious distance for charity on a bike
with roller cam brakes and precious little paint.

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony. http://www.chapmancentral.com Advance
notice: ADSL service in process of transfer to a new ISP. Obviously there will be a week of downtime
between the engineer removing the BT service and the same engineer connecting the same equipment on
the same line in the same exchange and billing it to the new ISP.