Author Archives: Marv

About Marv

A avid but amateur cyclist who regularly commutes to work, rides for exercise and completes the occasional long distance event. I also write a very poor blog marvmadethis.com about the joys of work/life/cycling balance with his long suffering wife and 2 little angels under the age of 5.

Stop thief…that’s my bloody bike!!!!

Dear Roulers,

In case you weren’t aware of it, Melbourne cyclists are in the middle of a bike theft epidemic. You’ve only to glance at: http://www.melbournecyclist.com/group/stolenbikes, to see how bad its becoming. A couple of recent articles in the Age opened my eyes to this issue: Bicycle Thieves target Australian Open and Thieves disappear with thousands of bicycles.

According to Police Statistics, January is the worse month for bike theft with on average 100 more bikes being stolen than in other months. Police reckon that over 5000 bikes worth, $3.9 million, where stolen in financial year 2013/14. Sadly, according the statistics, your chances of getting your beloved beast of burden back are very slim, less than 10%…..SO BEWARE.

20150312-BikeTheftGraph

 

So with this grim reality in mind here’s the bumper list of tips for bike theft prevention.

DO’s

  • Always lock up your bike.
  • Lock it up inside your house or apartment.
  • If its locked up in a shed or garage lock it up to something that’s immovable or very heavy.
  • If you are travelling about, lock it up in a well lit place with foot traffic. Do make changes to your routine eg locking up in different places. This avoids being cased by a would-be bike thief.
  • Lock your bike up to something metal and large.
  • Make sure that your bike is locked more securely than your neighbours.
  • Keep your bike close, in visible range.
  • Wheel theft is still expensive, lock your front wheel.
  • Buy and commute on a crappy bike, it will be less of a target.
  • If you ride an expensive bike, camouflage the branding by covering it up with tape or stickers.
  • If your bike has a metal frame engrave your name and number on the bottom bracket of the frame.
  • Register your bike with the police.
  • Make sure you have a photo of your bike and that it is covered by your house and contents insurance.
  • If you are Strava user use the settings to set a privacy perimeter around your work and home destinations. This way you don’t lead thieves to location of your bike. Don’t enter the model of your bike.

DON’Ts

  • Never lock up your bike on the end of bike rack, it’s more visible to thieves, better to lock it in the middle.
  • Avoid locking up on parking meters and sign posts. It’s possible for thieves to hoist your bike over the top of them.
  • Avoid bike theft hotspots – in Melbourne this means Brunswick, Fitzroy, Richmond and St.Kilda.
  • Avoid locking up your bike on a verandah or front yard.

WRT to locks and locking

DO

  • Use harden chain with small u-locks, that fit tightly around the frame and wheels. Bigger u-locks allow a thief leverage to force the locking mechanism.
  • Position the lock with keyway facing down. This makes it more difficult to force the lock.
  • Use high quality locks eg secure gold standard.
  • Lock through the frame and rear wheel.
  • Use two locks, this twice the deterrent.

DON’T

  • Do not use cable locks, they are too easy to cut.

20 Reasons to Love the Giro’Italia – Thanks Mr Walker

Dear Roulers,

In lieu of writing a proper blog this week, I thought I would share this infographic that appeared on the Peloton Magazine Twitter stream a few hours ago.  You can find it here: https://twitter.com/pelotonmagazine

20150225-20reasonstolovecycling

However, this seems to be a case of ‘light-fingered-ness’ on someone’s part, as the original can be found here http://www.cyclingcartoons.com/ is originally drawn by Dave Walker.  Credit should be given were credit is due.  This has now become my new favourite cycling website 🙂

Caio for now

Marv

The moral dilemma of the shop demo replacement bike

Dear Roulers,

It’s official I’m still waiting on my Villier, that’s in the workshop at Freedom Machine, waiting for that pesky Campagnolo rear derailleur.  For whatever reason, this part seems to be very difficult to track down.  It has been two weeks and I’m becoming very twitchy.  I assume it is some type of withdrawal symptom.  Which brings me to the major moral dilemma of my cycling life, whether to succumb to the forbidden fruit of the shop demo bike.

Trek Domane S5.2, demo bike care of Freedom Machine

Trek Domane S5.2, demo bike care of Freedom Machine

It was the second time I was offered the demo bike.  What didn’t realise was that it was serious roadbike, well over twice the cost of my Villier. OMG what a bike. It’s a matt black 2013 Trek  Domane 5.2 and it is beautiful.  It’s the first time I’ve ever ridden a full carbon fibre framed bike.  At first it’s a bit weird as its very light and super responsive in steering and acceleration.

I’ve always wondered whether the reviews I’ve read of high performance road bikes were a bit like snobby  wine reviews where the sommelier makes seemingly abstract and obscure claims about the relative merits of a wine.  For example http://www.bikerumor.com/2012/07/03/review-2013-trek-domane-endurance-road-bike/

However the bike that was designed for Fabian Cancellara and the classics doesn’t disappoint.  Its absolutely true that the bike soaks up the lumps and bumps on the road. There is almost no vibration coming into the handle bars. It’s also much kinder on my back as the riding position is a bit more upright, as you would expect in an endurance focused bike.  I now understand all the fuss over the Shimano Ultegra.  The gear shifting was faultless.

The 38km I did on it today was relatively effortless and in word… smooth. So does this mean I’m now cheating on my Villier and fallen for a high spec Trek?  More importantly how do I scrape together $4000 to by one?

Until next time.

PS Before I forget I’ve completed 697km in 6 weeks, which means I’m 14% of my 5000km goal.

The correct number of bikes to own

Dear Roulers,

I’ve been having a terrible run of outs with mechanical failures.  My Villier still isn’t back from the workshop due to the non-arrival of parts from whoever the local Conagolo dealer is….bummer.  The yesterday on my afternoon commute home I discovered that the back wheel of Cannondale has a whopping big buckle.

I’ll be buggered if I can figure out how exactly, I did that.  The buckle was so bad that it felt like the hub may have been shot.  Either way I’m be experiencing my own personal walk of shame to the bike shop with yet another tale of woe.  20141020-GiantSedona-SMLHowever the upside is that I still do have a third string bike, my Giant Sedona, purchased in 1997, that bike is heading towards 20 years old. The only bits that I’ve replaced on it have been the saddle twice, the pedals for some shiny one sided SPD clip-ins, the bottle cage and grippy tyres for some slicks.  Its showing signs of age with scratches and rust marks, but it’s still going strong.

I took it out for a ride with my wife this morning and was able to keep up with her on her much newer Giant Defy.  It must have looked a bit odd to the passing pelotons. It’s amazing the difference in power you can put into the bottom bracket of rigid frame bike.  By comparison the head shok Cannondale seemed to be about 2 to 3km slower on the same ride last week. All I can say is thank God I ignored my wife and kept my third string bike. It simply reminds me of the often quoted Velominati law of bike ownership ->

 Rule #12: The correct number of bikes to own is n+1

On http://abicycleculture.tumblr.com/, I found a variation of the law provided by Corkgrips, who clearly has the same domestic “issues”, that I have:

While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned.  This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner….from Velominati’s Rules

Until next time, see you on the roads.