Commuting & Winter Riding Thread

Training
1043

First wet ride in, first puncture. Naturally. :neutral_face:

  1. Bang. Woosh. Okay. Message received.
  2. Rear flat, remove wheel, remove tube,
  3. Check tube - nada
  4. Check tyre - nada
  5. New tube, lever on tyre, check for pinches
  6. Adapter on, CO2 canister on, Inflate…
  7. Bang. Woosh.

FFS.

  1. Call support vehicle? Lock bike and get train?
  2. iPhone dead. Never died on the commute until today.

FFS

  1. Canister 2.
  2. Check tube, check tyre, hold canister firm.
  3. Woosh, splutter, tyre not inflated…
  4. Hand frozen to canister.

FFS.

  1. Limp to sky car, get across river, watch the sky cry with me
  2. Decide to ride on rear flat on the pavements very slowly. Skittish to say the least.

Now I can’t find a sodding bike shop, nor one that will answer the bloody phone. We have a bike pump at work but the tube doesn’t seem to respond at all now.

Does anyone know if the Lee Valley Velo Park sells inner tubes?

Sigh. :face_exhaling:

5 Likes
1044

Brompton’s developed a really annoying squeak lately. I’ve had the BB out, changed one of the pedals and greased everything to no avail. It was in time with the pedal rotations so assumed it was a rotating part but a bit of Googling and further experimentation showed it carried on, albeit much quieter when not pedaling and and could be provoked by bouncing on the seat, leading me to the rubber suspension block.

I have a few tools at work so took the block out, cleaned it all but didn’t have any sort of grease to reassemble. Went all round town and the best I could do was a tub of Vaseline from Superdrug.
Then bingo, walking past the lift room and noticed the key in the door from the last time the engineer came. Nipped in, big dollop of grease from the gears and hey presto, we’re back in business.
Whether it’ll work or not remains to be seen on the way home, will report back later.

Ps. Learnt something else whilst Googling too. The suspension block can be rotated to a non-locking position, like the old Bromptons, meaning you don’t have to operate the little lever to fold it up.

1 Like
1045

It worked, not a squeak to be heard on the way home😁
Greasing your bung hole is the way forward :roll_eyes:

4 Likes
1046

Did you get it sorted?

Bandit country out that way - I think there’s an Evans Cycles in Canary Wharf

Thai is obviously no help hours after though

1 Like
1047

Ha ha! Too true.

I still see no sign of the cause of the first puncture, the second tube had exploded though :thinking:. Tyre is now fucked for sure even if it wasn’t before.

Yes, yes they do.

They’re not that deep in their bike knowledge and took a really long time to sell me the 700x25 I was after because the box didn’t say “road” on it.

To be fair, Wiktoria was a lovely young lady…but I suspect she has trouble spelling her own name.

:grimacing:

6 Likes
1048

Deployed some of the discounted Sportful kit @r0bh mentioned few weeks back. Very nice. Feels a bit too good for commuting kit; but thats what it was priced at.

5 Likes
1049

Didn’t get round to sorting out my bike after last week, now crammed into SE Rails finest sardine can, dagnabbit.

2 Likes
1050

Still waiting fo my new commuting bike, trains are worse than pre covid, especially now with these new type with less seats so they can cram even more germ carriers on to try to kill me with disease

2 Likes
1051

Wife said the same.
Sends me photos - rammed every day.
Not helped by the feckless Avanti not running :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

2 Likes
1052

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Still no cycling for me for a while, so today’s rare visit to the office was a walking commute. 4.75km in less than an hour door to door

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1053

Hasn’t that bridge fallen down yet? :joy:

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1054

It got rebuilt the next day whilst people queued; do keep up

3 Likes
1055

It was a bit fresh this morning, a bet that bridge was blustery

1 Like
1056

Nah, definitely t-shirt weather today

2 Likes
1057

Can take the boy out of the North…
…

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1058

Who let the American in?

2 Likes
1059

Who, @Jorgan ? With his “fetus” :joy:

I’m Gerard Butler

1060

No, I was thinking of the person confusing London and Tower bridges :slight_smile:

3 Likes
1061

Eh? What are you on about?
He’s walking over London Bridge, looking down to Tower.

Hence the comment about it falling down, as in, how is he walking on it.

I used to work on Cannon Street and would do that walk at lunch :+1:t3:

2 Likes
1062

The picture of Tower Bridge, “hasn’t that bridge fallen”

Doesn’t really matter

3 Likes