Tips

Grade your bike locking skills

Monday, April 28th, 2008

New York bike mechanic Hal Ruzal goes out with Bike Church founder Kerri Martin to evaluate how New Yorkers lock their bikes in this video at Streetfilms. Bikes with secure front and rear wheels and saddles using quality locks get an A, while those secured with “Craptownite locks” from the hardware store get a [...]

The Slacker’s Guide to Bike Commuting

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

This article isn’t for the detail oriented bike commuters. It’s also not for the hardcore, race-to-work riders either.
This one is for those of us that don’t like to plan ahead. Bike maintenance isn’t our thing. We consider rain showers wash-day for our bikes. And we certainly aren’t using our [...]

Top 5 Reasons to Claim the Lane (and why it’s safer)

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

There is a lot of debate as to where a bicycle commuter should position themselves in relation to the road. New bike commuters, especially, are often intimidated by riding in the road and often choose something that isn’t necessarily the safest place. Here are the top two:

Sidewalk - While the odds of you [...]

Check that bike rack

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

You’ve done your homework and bought the best locks for your bike, you know how to securely lock your bike, and perhaps you’ve even uglified it. But have you ensured the bike rack itself is secure?
University of Oregon students Lauren Miller, Hollie Putnam and Lauren Prince discovered all three of their locked bicycles were stolen [...]

Grinding brakes test nerves and rims

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

I’ve been using SwissStop all-weather pads on my road bike for a while, but this morning, they started grinding.  As it turns out, the temperatures here are still below freezing, and that made the brake pads harder and harsher.  Little by little, they started to scour aluminum off of my rims.  This made a horrible [...]

Cyclist tip: Change your patch kit glue

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

If you carry a patch kit around and don’t use glueless patches, now’s a good time to check the glue in your patch kit. The glue can evaporate even from unopened tubes of glue. The end of the metal glue tubes are usually crimped, and there’s sometimes enough of a gap to allow the glue [...]

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