Saturday 9th January
A perishingly cold day to do cycle maintenance although everybody turned up. We have sold the Caprice to a lady in Manchester who found it on the web so Nick did the final tests and tweaks. I worked on the Viscount and Edgar, with the help of Robin, worked on the rusty Carlton.
Matt and Sam came with their flash tool kit Christmas presents which spawned a few ideas.
Sam's bike was stolen just before the Christmas period so we have decided to sell his the small MB which Edgar has just finished for £30 and if he still has it in a year then we will give his his £30 back.
Still not sure what to do with the Cannondale MB. The front forks are great but we cannot get a head set to match.
The Debate.
After lunch we had a chat about where the project goes from here. The issue is that many bikes that we see are cheap, poorly made and heavy ATBs resulting in an unsatisfactory riding experience. Cheap bikes that are made in the far east and sold on-line or by big department stores are designed to fall apart so that eventually the rider will go out and buy a new one. This is a common theme in most commercial business models. We can end up spending a lot of time fixing these kind of bikes which ultimately only encourages this approach to cycle manufacture.
There is a clear difference in the riding experience between mass market bikes and the light weight 531 based quality second hand bikes which we believe in. The problem is (a) encouraging the use of 531 based bikes and (b) getting hold of old 531 frames to rebuild bikes on.
A direction we need to go in is more frequent opening, one day a week which will probably happen after January. Morning session will be for the public to bring their bikes for service and the afternoon will be to work on donated bikes.
We should think about training days in March when more people will be cycling. Either a 'fix your own' bike day by providing tools or course.
Next Spindles will be 30th Jan 2010
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