Is it possible to squeeze the line “My cardiovascular fitness level’s right up there with Lance” into a rap and have it sound good? Amazingly, yes, as MC SpandX shows us in his wonderful hipster-baiting, fixie-dissing performance. Hilarious.
Video page [YouTube via Cyclelicious]
Unless you’re suicidal, when you ride a fixed-gear bike, you’ll want to strap your feet in. Traditionally, this has been done by leather or fabric toe-straps, held open by metal cages, or more recently clip-less pedals, which (paradoxically) clip on to a special cleat in the sole of a cycling shoe.
Recently, another option has started to show up. It’s a wide strap which uses Velcro to secure it to itself, and is stiff enough to remain open even when empty, allowing your feet to slide in. Advantages: lightweight, a good tight fit and works well with any regular shoes. Disadvantages: Very limited availability and therefore relatively high cost. One commercial example is the Brooklyn-made Hold Fast.
And what do we do here on Gadget Lab when we can’t find or afford a piece of kit? We make our own. I paid a visit to the hardware store, spent less than €2, and maybe an hours worth of work (and several hours of laying in bed this morning planning). The result? FootBelts! (FeetBelts is already taken). Follow along and make your own.
First, the hardware. You’ll need some kind of strap or webbing. I used strapping for ratchets. I figured that if it’s strong enough to tighten down a load on a truck, it’s good enough for my feet. It was also cheap, came in a bunch of bright colors and was available in the right size. As ever, don’t worry too much about what I’m using. I headed to the hardware store and poked around to see what looked good. You should do the same. I bought two meters for €1.80 (around $2.50).
The second ingredient is Velcro, and I have a lot left over from various projects. Buy it by the roll (it’s cheaper in bulk) and pick something the same width or narrower than your strapping. Finally, a needle and thread. A sewing machine is quicker, but I don’t have one.
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Put a shoe on the pedal and measure how much strap you’ll need. There should be a good foot-width of overlap on the top, as this is where the Velcro will go. Mark, measure again and cut. At this stage I found out that my strapping likes to fray, but happily it’s made of plastic. A quick trip through a lighter flame sealed the ends.
Add Velcro
Part of the strip will be split to thread through the holes in the pedal. I stuck the (self-adhesive) Velcro first and cut through both together. You can do this, or cut separately. The idea is to make a Velcro sandwich, with hooks and loops that clamp onto each other. It’s easier to see than to explain:
The second part of the sandwich is sewn on. This is fairly important for strength, as the seam will take a fair amount of stress. I’m a messy but effective sewer when I’m in a hurry, but this should hold, at least until I make it to a sewing machine.
That’s it. The sizes will depend on the size of your feet and pedals, as well as your material, but the actual setup is straightforward enough. Thread the “forked” part through the pedals from the outside and then up and over your foot. Stick them to the top of the wide strap and then fold the sewn flap over the top to secure.
Ride
I took them for a quick spin and they feel great. I’ll need to do a longer trip to be sure, but I like them so far, and they’ll work with softer summer shoes. Two weak points may be where the strap is split, and the sewn seam. Also, you should really sew the Velcro into place, not just leave it glued. Again, a sewing machine will help.
Good luck, and let us know if you make any of your own. Bonus points for innovations and outlandish colors.
This is an oldie, but most certainly a goody, and if you have never heard of the Topeak PropShock, you’re going to like it. The pump is designed to re-pressurize the shock-absorbers in your bike, and can deliver pressure of up to 300 psi.
So far, so normal. But there is a secret function, too. See the eyelets on either end? If your rear shock fails, those holes let you swap in the PropShock and limp home. The pump won a Eurobike award a few years back, but as the folks at Bike Radar just recently tested it out, we thought it was worth digging up. $55.
Product page [Topeak via Bike Radar]
Kryptonite’s Evolution Mini is the U-lock of choice amongst bike messengers and bike messenger wannabees. That it is easily recognizable by the bright orange suppository of plastic which sheathes the cylinder may have something to do with this.
I’m no messenger, but I do like to lock up my bike, and as my old U-lock was making some rather disturbing clicking noises as I turned the key, I picked one up last week. Obviously it works, because I still have my bike.
The Evolution Mini is popular because it is tiny but strong. At 3.25” x 5.5” it can easily be tucked into a belt, is barely big enough to wrap a wheel, frame and thin post (a good thing) and is still heavy enough to make you confident it’ll do its job. On Kryptonite’s own scale of one to 12, it measures a nine. This is meaningless in the real world, but for in-range comparisons it means you’re nearing the top end. .
After strength, the most important feature is ease of use. The Mini is very easy to use, although the size causes a few problems. The key slides in smoothly, and as it is in the middle of the straight section you aren’t constantly guessing which end has the hole. A plastic, rotating cuff keeps the rain out. The U-part itself has a kicked out “Bent Foot” at one end which hooks into the straight section, and then the other end is secured by the lock mechanism. It all goes together and comes apart easily and smoothly, with no forcing or rattling.
A small U-lock is desirable because it means you can fill the interior gap with bike, making it a lot harder to cram a jack or lever inside. The downside it that it limits your locking options, and you’ll often end up jamming the bike up against a post and jiggling it to fit the puzzle together, which is bad for both blood-pressure and paintwork. The Mini has this trouble, but with a standard sized bike parking hoops you can squeeze things in.
Still, small also makes it easy to carry, and if you’re not getting all hipster and sticking it in your belt you can use the included frame-mounting bracket. Once clamped in place, you slide in the lock using this rather mean-looking metal cleat. It’s a pushbutton release so you won’t have the lock hopping out when you hit a pothole.
One other fun feature is the key itself, or at least one of them. Two are normal, but the third looks like a car-key and has a push-button LED inside to light your way. It’s a little chunky, and you shouldn’t really be locking your bike in such dark corners anyway, but still, it looks cool.
The keys can also be registered at Kryptonite, so a replacement can be sent should you lose all three. You can also use the number to order more locks that use the same “keyway” to keep your fob from getting overloaded.
In conclusion, the Kryptonite Evolution Mini deserves its rep, and looks very nice, too, as bike locks go. Don’t buy it if you have fat wheels, fat tubes or usually tie-up to a fat post. Do buy if you value strength and ease of use in a small package. $60.
Product page [Kryptonite]
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Getting kids on bikes early is a great way to keep them cycling for life. I got my first big-boy’s bike when I was around five. It had stabilizers (training wheels), solid rubber tires and was a copy of a Raleigh Chopper cruiser. I loved it, I often crashed it, and I painted it a hideous 1970s shade of dark blue. In between than and now I have hardly been without a bicycle.
And the QuadraByke would have let me start even younger. It begins as a four-wheeled transport, suitable for any toddler to take for a spin around the yard. As they grow older and more confident, the kids can remove wheels one at a time, running through a trike and up to a bike. Best of all, they can do it themselves, and without tools, meaning that they not only learn to ride, they learn to tinker, too.
An enclosed chain keeps tiny fingers safe, and the axle design is the key. It allows you to put a wheel on each side of the frame, or inside the forks. Better, its inexpensive (ish). At £110 ($185), it’s not the cheapest kids bike, but then, it is three kids bikes.
Product page [Q-Byke via Bike Radar]
If further proof were ever needed that inventors should leave the naming of their inventions to others, here it is. Swiss designer Andy Muff has come up with some clever new length-adjustable stem and layback-adjustable seatpost designs, and he has given them the snooze-worthy name of “ISA”, or Integrated Size Adjustment.
The seat-post fits any saddle, and clamps onto the rails in the way of any modern tilt-adjustable post. This one, though, has an internal, eccentric section in the middle which can be turned 180º to move the mount an inch backwards (or forwards, depending on where you start).
The stem works similarly, with an insert that can change position, like a big, movable shim, to alter the POSITION of the handlebars by 30mm, or just over an inch.
Neat, patent-pending and not yet for sale, these are of limited use but for the right purpose could be very useful, in a shared bike for instance (although if you’re going to spring for presumably expensive, specialist part, you should probably just buy another, cheap, bike).
Designer invents stem and post with 30mm of adjustment [Bike Radar]
I see a lot of folding bikes in Barcelona. Small-ish apartments, a lack of elevators in many apartment buildings and a generally high risk of theft means plegable bikes are pretty popular. I used to have one, but it was so small that motorists would laugh at me in the street (I’m over 6’2”) so I swapped to a less embarrassing pink girls’ bike. And there seem to be almost as many designs as there are riders.
Dominic Hargreaves, a 24 year old designer, has come up with yet another one, called the Contortionist. And when you see how fast and easily it folds up, you’ll know why. It’s almost impossible to explain, so head to the (non-embeddable) video page to see in in action. And watch your fingers — some of those hinged joints look like they could chop a pinkie off at the knuckle.
You’re back? Good. You’ll have noticed that, apart from folding up to a size smaller than its own wheels (on which it can still be rolled in its collapsed state) there are few other oddities. First, the wheels are each attached by one arm, not two. This helps the folding, but has to be made nice and strong. It also puts the wheels off-axis instead of in the usual straight line.
Next, where’s the chain? There isn’t one. Actually, check the video again and you’ll see that Hargreaves doesn’t even pedal, but a production version will use pipes and hydraulic fluid to transfer power from leg to wheel. Yes, production. Hargreaves is in talks with three car manufacturers to actually make this bike. It shouldn’t be too hard to guess which they are: they’re all German.
The best thing, though, is that the bike looks so damn cool when unfolded. Most folders have charm, but even the beloved Brompton is a bit on the dork/utility side of things. The Contortionist, though, looks like it could be Batman’s bike.
Product page [Eye to Hand via The Grauniad]
This might look like a joke product, but designer Paul Kweton has actually built and used the Ring-O-Star (ho ho) bike cup holder. The silicon ring attaches to a bar-end via an aluminum expanding bolt, and then the cup of hot joe is placed inside ring and transformed into a dangerous weapon.
This is obviously a bad idea, but if used for a bottle of water or a soft drink (in a can, of course) it could be a handy addition to a bottle cage. Actually, let’s be honest. It’s a terrible idea. I would buy one, though, and load it with an empty cup and use both for handy storage and to baffle pedestrians.
Update: Our New York Bureau Chief, John C Abell, put me on the trail of a real, gyroscopically controlled cup holders, meant for use in boats or clamping to fishing rods. The $15 device swings on two axes to keep things steady, and comes with a insulating foam insert. You can even get it with a “Rail Mount Adapter”, which should clamp nicely to a handlebar. You’ll find it here. All it needs is some garish coloring and it could be marketed to the fixie-fashion crowd.
Coffee Cup Holder for Bikes by Paulbaut [Design Boom]
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The Pulse concept-o-cycle from Teague is a cross between a fixed-gear bike, a cafe-racer motorcycle and a bag of fireflies. The ultra-simple bike design includes glowing tubes, bar-ends and even pedal, which will both keep you safe at night and, due to being built-in, resist the attempts of thieves.
The bike exists nowhere except inside a CAD application, and the pictures generated therefrom, which explains some of the rather odd details (take a look at those toe-straps, for example), but the idea and the styling is sound. The bar-tips contain LED turn-signals, operated by twist-grip switches. Pointless in the day, but dead handy at night. The tail-light is in the seat-post, and the whole frame glows in the dark (although the designer doesn’t bother to tell us how. Maybe it is fireflies).
One neat touch is in the pedals, which are weighted to always stay right-side-up for easy toe entry. We’re not sure how well that would work in practice, but we’d like to give it a try.
Product page [Page Gangster via Core77]
One of the beauties of bike riding is the freedom. You buy one, or find one, and just jump on. There are no taxes, no fuel to buy and almost anything that goes wrong can be fixed by the rider. They’re also cheap enough that anyone can own one.
But should bikes be treated more like cars? Further, is it even possible to do so? Bike riding seems to be getting more and more popular, a result of green concerns, money concerns and the attentions of politicians. London Mayor Boris Johnson plans to spend £111 million on cycling infrastructure in the capital in the coming year. It might not surprise you to learn that Johnson is a keen cyclist.
So as the use of bikes explodes, and bike-sharing schemes in many European cities bloom, are we heading for a changes in the law?
Taxes
One way to pay for bike lanes is to levy a tax. This could be on sales, or something like the vehicle tax on cars. Many drivers like this idea, as they bemoan that they are giving cyclists a free ride. But road tax doesn’t exist, and there are many other taxes which pay for their upkeep, including the vehicle license of cyclists who own cars.
Also, once bike lanes are built, they require little maintenance other than stopping cars from parking in them. It’s also likely that taxation would be impossible to enforce. How would you know who had paid for what? Bikes would need to carry registration plates, and that seems unlikely. A sales tax on new bikes would slow sales and be, in these times of peak oil, political suicide. It looks like we’re safe for now.
Insurance
Car-advocates often propose mandatory third party insurance for cyclists. It is available, and it’s cheap — a testament to the difference in damage-causing capability beween a two wheeled, human powered bike and a two-ton, gas-fuelled monster.
As bikes become more common in cities, it is likely that pedestrians will start to sue cyclists for crashing into them, so insurance could be useful. But again, how would you possibly police mandatory insurance without registering all bikes and making them carry license plates? Add to this that most policies would be void the moment that a rider runs a red light of hops onto a sidewalk and you’re looking at a whole mess. Which brings us to:
Road Laws
Cyclists flout the law. We run stop lights, drive on the pavement (legal here in Barcelona, although wearing an iPod will get you a fine) and head in the wrong direction down one-way streets. All clearly illegal, but all, at times, the safest thing to do. Sure, a bad cyclist will likely do all three at once, at top speed, and give some poor grandmother a heart attack. But for the more careful rider, a slip down a one-way street can avoid a dangerous junction, for example.
It has been argued that red lights and street directions shouldn’t apply to cyclists anyway, as they are not inventions for safety but inventions to lubricate traffic-flow, specifically motor-traffic. As a bike, carefully and sensibly ridden, cannot cause a traffic jam, it follows that they should not have to abide by these traffic schemes. With the exception of driving on the correct side of the road, why should bikes obey car laws?
Roadside Assistant
As easy as bikes are to fix, not everybody want to repair a flat or gets their hands dirty on their way to work. Roadside assistance for cyclist has just been announced for AAA members in Oregon and Southern Idaho. The catch is that you’ll have to have a car to get it, as there is no standalone package for cyclists: It’ll come as part of the Plus, Plus RV and Premier packages. These start at $105 per year.
Neither will the mechanic fix it for you. He will give you a lift, for up to 25 miles, but apparently it is too hard to mend a bicycle. Marie Dodds of the AAA told Oregon Live that “There are a million sizes of tires and tubes. Our people are not prepared to repair bikes.”
This seems like an excuse: apart from removing the bottom bracket of my bike, I can repair everything on it with a multi-tool, a 15mm wrench, a pump and a puncture repair kit (slipped into a pocket made from an old inner-tube section). I can true a wheel, break and remake the chain and swap in a new saddle, all with a kit that fits into a pocket. I’m sure that an AAA van could carry everything needed in a small tool-box, and how much space does a box of different sized tubes take up?
Still, late night rescue in the rain is still a nice service to have. Or you could try the Better World Club, which has offered a bike assistance scheme for some time. It’ll cost $40, and they will even fix a puncture for you.
What do you all think? Should bikes be, legally, treated like cars, or should cars be penalized further to push people onto bikes? There are plenty of opinions, and we haven’t even started on the savings in health costs made by riding instead of driving. Have at it in the comments, and keep it clean.
Photo: mugley/Flickr
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