KarmaCycle: 6Music

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Cycling tip du jour - fixing a nut underneath your mudguard

The nuts and bolts holding on my mudguards seem to fall off like leaves from an autumn tree. It's got more common since I've been pumping up my tyres harder - and I rattle around like a marble in a tumble drier. I was baffled as to how on earth I could insert and tighten a missing screw right above my rear wheel - without taking off the whole wheel.

Source: the local data company

The lovely guys at Cavendish Cycles (134-136 New Cavendish Street) showed me how:

Place bike on bike stand, or turn upside down.
Let out air from tyre.
Insert screw and nut and tighten using longish allen key or equivalent as there's now room to get at it.
Re-inflate tyre. Ride off, feeling happy.

They also play 6Music in the shop, for which they should immediately get a gold medal for services to cyclists.

Curious fact: I can't actually find a website for Cavendish cycles. Perhaps they don't have one?

The Cycle of Karma

When you're cycling around 100 miles a week through London, you develop some strange notions. The one I can't get out of my head is that you build up karma - good and bad - depending on how you cycle. So - if you stop at red lights, wait politely for pedestrians, smile at cars, you get rewarded - the next light turns green for you straight away, someone smiles back at you - you get the picture. Of course this doesn't always work, but it works often enough for me to try to cycle by those rules. Most of the time.