Comments | j4: Bike curious

Bike curious

Sep 19, 2011 20:31

I will do a proper update soon, honest (& might even get round to reading other people's journals & commenting on them!) but right now I have a question which is a bit more time-critical and I'd be really grateful for answers from people who know about bikes ( Read more... )

lazywebs, baby, cycling

Comments 32

juggzy September 19 2011, 19:41:40 UTC

I know that Rachel loves her put-the-kid-in-front bike, and Charles seems perfectly happy in it - I expect she'll be along in a minute to extoll its virtues!

(The comment has been removed)

fanf September 19 2011, 22:15:36 UTC

I am not the person to ask about how to evaluate second hand bikes, sorry! But it looks like there's a helpful answer below. One thing I would add is that it's extra helpful to have extra gears on a heavy bike. Our pointer (standard Dutch bike) has a three speed hub which is barely sufficient. Our bakfiets has a seven speed hub and I use all the gears.

j4 September 20 2011, 09:36:44 UTC

That's useful to know, thanks. OTOH I don't tend to use the gears much on my normal mountain-bike-ish bike (even when it's heavily loaded with stuff). I think I'd really need to try it to know how it feels!

not very helpful, sorry sebastienne September 19 2011, 20:29:52 UTC

Someone quite often parks one of those outside the SBS. I always think that it looks awesome!

jinty September 19 2011, 20:54:50 UTC

The Electric Bike shop on Magdalen St has previously offered to send stuff along from its Cambridge shop if one wanted a trial of stuff they don't have in stock normally, and they do stock cargo bikes, so I'm sure that getting parts for it will not be massively difficult. Good luck!

j4 September 20 2011, 09:39:11 UTC

I did talk to the Electric Bike Shop man but he was a bit cagey about what would happen if he got a bike over from Cambridge & I then decided not to buy it -- it wasn't quite "you'd be obliged to buy it" but I got the impression he'd be pretty pissed off if I didn't. Also, he definitely seemed to be trying to talk me out of being interested in a cargo bike, & I really don't know how much of that was a belief that it wasn't the best bike for me (or at all) & how much was the knowledge that it's an enormous thing that he'd have to keep somewhere in a tiny shop. :-} Fair point about the parts, though, he might be more willing to get them as they'd be smaller!

vinaigrettegirl September 19 2011, 20:55:50 UTC

I would be very very concerned about lack of neck and back support; she's very young for all the jouncing about and absolutely too young for a back of the bike seat. A 3 point system may no longer be street legal for such a small baby and I would check around widely as to whether just-sitting-up is sufficiently strong for a bike seat. She needs a helmet: do they make them that small? presumably it has a raincover?

Bring a tack hammer and tap all the welds and joints. Look for signs of bending and dodgy repair. Check the wheels and axles as you would for any bike. It looks bloody heavy, as well - but you are very strong!

fanf September 19 2011, 22:09:17 UTC

Some friends of ours put a child's car seat in their bakfiets.

vinaigrettegirl September 20 2011, 05:38:01 UTC

If it was strongpointed in, great. Oxford is not the Netherlands. There are safer front-loaders in the UK than this one, by a mile.

j4 September 20 2011, 09:51:11 UTC

I know she's still too young now, but she's getting bigger all the time (cue chorus: "they do that" :-) and given that it may take me months to find the right bike, I want to start looking/investigating/buying before she's old enough. The smallest helmet that the local bike shop sells is 46cm -- haven't measured her head yet but obviously if she's too small for a helmet she's too small for a bike ( ... )

Thread 9

htfb September 19 2011, 21:16:53 UTC

New, that's for sale (at, eg, kidstraffic.nl) for 779 euros. Linking to a bakfiets.nl model at 1800 is a bit disingenuous ( ... )

htfb September 20 2011, 06:38:40 UTC

Oops. In an earlier draft of this, I explained that "BSO" was cycling-forum slang for Bicycle-Shaped-Object, meaning a cheap bicycle which is just insufficiently well built to be a useful vehicle. They get bought, ridden a couple of times, and die rusting in sheds. Cycle King used to sell a lot of them when I was in Oxford.

j4 September 20 2011, 10:48:46 UTC

Wow, thanks, this is really comprehensive! I ran the review through Google Translate and while it's a bit garbled ("the mop construction and finds a heavy box"?) the overall message is fairly clear. :-( On the other hand, I'd like to have a go at it & see how the handling feels to me...

How expensive/difficult is it likely to be to upgrade brakes?

And I have heard 'Bicycle Shaped Object' before but didn't pick up the acronym so thanks for explaining. :-) To be honest I suspect a Serious Cyclist would tell me that my bike is only a BSO, but it's served me well for nearly a decade now!

htfb September 20 2011, 13:52:05 UTC

If you can continue riding it for years it's a bicycle. No room for snobbery on my bike. You might try on the (really very friendly) forum yacf.co.uk for advice, too. There's a subsection called Kidstuff where people may be more clued-up about your options ( ... )