anyone into cycling or bicycles in general?

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QFT, it seems too often that 90% of cyclists give the other 10% a bad rep.

You mean like roads? Bikes are permitted to use the full lane. Overall, the more people biking instead of driving, the faster we'll get places due to the decrease in traffic. Cars are meant to share the road with bikes and motorcycles.

If there's a double yellow line, it's actually safer for the bike to be in the lane, it forces the vehicle drivers to wait until they can pass with enough space. Driving near the side of the road is how bicyclists get killed from sideswipes. If drivers weren't so careless, bikes could feel safer on the side of the road, but a lot of times there isn't enough space to stay out of the door zone and also give cars enough room to pass safely.



Drivers of cars are just as dangerous, and when you consider they can actually kill you, much more dangerous. Bikes can't kill me when I'm in a car.

I would feel safer if each type of transport [pedestrian, bicycle, car, commercial truck] had their own pathways kept separate from the other.

Yes, protected bike lanes need to be implemented more.

I suppose I mean I just don't really get the bike thing anyways...but I still try to respect its what some people like to do. So yeah when I can i move over and let bikes through especially if the are coasting and have gathered some speed...my problem is when some of them seem to purposely obstruct other people. Like I mean one time me and my boyfriend were stuck between a biker for like 20 minutes because they would not let us by and it was a double stripe lane road and pretty twisty so we did not feel it would be safe to try and go around and it went on for like 20 minutes. Like in what universe if you are on the bike do you not pull over so the vehicle that has been behind you 10 minutes can get by...your tired so you just slow down and force a vehicle that can go faster to stay behind you for 10 minutes longer by staying almost just over the mid lane so the vehicle behind you cannot pass. Like seriously that is really bad driving or someone just trying to be a sh*thead.

I mean not like car drivers are any better half of them don't follow the rules either...such as turn your freaking headlights on in stormy weather(makes you easier to see so you don't get hit). Especially if you have a grey or white car than turn you headlights on so people can freaking see you. I see so many people just not turn their headlights on in severe weather and I only have my permit and I still think...it says right in the drivers handbook to turn on you freaking lights in stormy/severe weather. And so many people don't even do it.

I suspect many of them also ignored the part about how to handle your car if you hit an ice patch. Which of course puts others in danger. I mean if everyone knows what to do when your car hits an ice patch survival is more likely when people ignore that part and its not even on the drivers quiz they are more likely to f**k up and kill you to. I was suprised when I took my driving test to get the permit that they did not even have a single question of how control the vehicle in ice. I mean its like they just hand the thing out regardless.

I can't count the number of times that a bicyclist cut in front of me out of nowhere, when I had the green light, and then when I slammed on my breaks and barely avoided them, they cussed me out! but as a bicyclist [at least when the roads permitted it here] I've also been cussed out by drivers who resented that I shared the road with them even when I tried to stay out of their way, I can't count the number of flats I got riding beside the road and hitting all those discarded sharps [bits of shattered glass, carpenter's tacks et al]. so it got to a point where if the traffic was too thick i'd just park on the gravel and wait for it to pass.

My cycling speed varies, seeing as its a custom made British mountain bike, manufactured in the States, its bound to be a bit temperamental at times, but I have a good grasp on it now, I should have after seven years, and its only needed one makeover in that time. When I cycle I go on for miles till I need to rest. After, when I get back, the next day feels raw between my legs and buttocks where the saddle has been. I have got two gel saddle covers and I used to have hats underneath, but getting those things are a nightmare. How to avoid post friction, I would need something very spongy wedged there for extra padded comfort.

mebbe consider trying a Bikee? they have seats that are chafe-proof, I own one.

Mechanical work has been a struggle lately, but as I find myself with every bicycle needing a little work so I had no faultless bikes to ride, I needed to do something, hence the photos. Not re-assembled the freewheel yet. Will do! It had spacing issues which meant the third gear was not quite seated correctly so was slipping on the freewheel body splines. Is a bit of a bespoke freewheel.

You don't see many people taking apart freewheels any more.
I had one come apart on me while I was riding one day. I ended up pushing the bike back along the route I had ridden to find as many of the bearings as I could (19 if I remember correctly) and then reassembled it with a nail that I found on the side of the road during the walk. Worked well enough on half of it's freewheel bearings to get me through the week until I could just replace the freewheel. I've been riding a fixed gear lately, though.

nobody else here has a Bikee?

Most individuals around my county literally drive as if they are the only vehicle on the road. I have had people pull out in front of me [without a turn signal on] from under 100 yards away [90 meters] on a road with a 55 MPH [88.5 KPH] speed limit, again without any warning or regard for oncoming traffic. I take back roads and not the interstate highway to save gas mileage [extra time makes this worthwhile], and this happens so often that I literally drive 5-10 miles per hour below the speed limit whenever possible [I'm usually alone on the road around here] to avoid constantly slamming on my breaks.



Funny [and true] story.... a friend of mine recruited me to help teach her son to drive [in their car] years ago. He told me that his drivers education manual [US state of Georgia] suggested that he go out to an open parking lot in icy/snowy weather and spin out on purpose/do burnouts/donuts to get used to how a vehicle performed [or didn't] on icy roads. I honestly didn't believe him until he showed me the page in the manual which demonstrated the simple physics of this, even accompanied by drawings of a vehicle doing circular spinouts in a packing lot as suggested. I even tried to take a couple of photos of this page in his manual [I was very surprised], but they are difficult to make out. To this day, I am still not quite sure whether this was a horribly irresponsible idea to put into a state driving manual, or a really great idea to give a student driver the exact feeling of a car losing traction. He begged me to do it with him that winter at first, but he agreed with me when I responded that local police would not accept that idea as being anything less than illegal trespassing and irresponsible driving behaviour and that we'd both likely get ticked or arrested for it.



I'm not familiar with it, but I always used to have an extra wide seat [wider in the back, still sort of triangle shaped] when I rode my bike in New Orleans. We have sidewalks on many of the roads in my county, but as cyclists and pedestrians are killed just about every year around here [local county population is well under 17,000] by the sort of drivers I've described above, I just switched completely to off-road walks/hikes in the woodland and state park trails around here for safety. Tell us about the Bikee...? Is it easy on your back?

I did not need to take the freewheel body apart on this occasion as this part works ok. I have taken freewheels apart many times in the past and rebuilt them. Cassettes are more of a pain with their freewheeling mechanisms because they just don't last so long. The pawl area is just too small a diameter. It is one reason why I prefer to use a freewheel. The other reason I prefer a freewheel is that todays cassettes are cramming too many cogs in with their ultra thin chains. The chains have to ride at extreme angles which increases wear on the chain. The teeth on thinner chainrings wear quicker and the wider the frames need to be built to to cater for this, the less efficient those frames are due to the indirect forces imposed upon them. They have to overbuild to stiffen up the rear chainstays and seatstays to compensate for this. (It is why it is not such a good plan to gently widen the stays on ones frame so one can cram in more gears. It is a better plan to alter the gear ratios then to cram in more gears).
Todays fashion for cramming the largest gear cluster on the back and having it all work off a single chainring on the front is an engineering and mechanical "No". When I did time trialling the most I would put on the back if I had a course with less hills so I only needed a single chainset was a six speed freewheel. I could have easily used a seven speed but the angles would be less efficient. They actually worked best in a mechanical way as five speed systems if using a single chainring. Six was the compromize.
In the same way with a triple chainset I will tend to go up to a seven speed freewheel though my racing bikes use a six speed freewheel as racing bike gearing does not need to be so extreme in the lower gears. (I only use a triple chainset on them because I live up quite a steep hill so if I go out I want to ride back home without pushing. I just about used to get up this 1 in 4 hill using the 52 teeth chainring going down to a 21tooth rear first gear but most of the time I used a 24 tooth first gear. That was when I was in my prime! My touring bike has a 34 tooth ring on the freewheel and 24 tooth low gear on the chainset (Hence the eed to custom build a freewheel as the nearest commercially made freewheel out there to my requirements is the Shimano Megarange, and there is such a big jump between the 34 tooth and the 24 tooth second gear it is stupid! So my freewheels are generally Megarange rebuilds or just rebuilds as in the case of my racing bikes.

I tried the bike out just before it got dark and ok, the freewheel spacing is not perfect but it works and at least the issue has been solved. However I ended up with another issue which will need sorting out. My bottom bracket fitting dynamo tends to slip instead of turn on the hard wearing tyres I use when it is wet. I once had this issue before and I thought by making sure everything turns freely it should work but... Uhmmm. I may need to think up a way to power these lights by some sort of battery instead. I did have other lights to a similar style but were modern battery powered lights, but they had a very short support bracket which did not fit my brake assembly, so I made longer brackets from old dynamo light brackets etc, but even though these worked, the light would bounce around a bit much so it was not ideal.
So the answer for me is batteries for this dynamo system. Though a hub dynamo would be the answer it does give a small amount of extra friction even when the lights are off and besides. They are not cheap, soo...
Is back to the drawing board! Haha!
If I use a battery operated system I may alter bulbs and convert it to run on 3 volt using 2.5 volt bulbs instead. I do not know what fitting the halogen front lamp bulb uses as I have never had to open it up... I have had it for nearly 30 years as I bought it in the early 1990's!

My bike? (I find using cycle paths can be just as hazardous as using the road as on the road, at least everything is going in the same direction, but on the cycle paths no one keeps to the rules! It is a guessing game).

I quite agree. We don't have bike paths along the roads in my county, and even if we did, I still wouldn't consider it safe due to the local drivers. We do have some winding off-of-the-beaten-path side roads across the streets from my neighbourhood, but I'd have a good bit of repair/refurbishing to do on my bike before I could ever ride it again, and my chiropractor likely wouldn't recommend even that with my back in the shape it's in!

it has an adjustable rear suspension, a gooey energy-absorbing and wide seat and seatback, energy-absorbing front fork, softer tires. prone to flats. haven't ridden mine since 2005 after the last flat and i could no longer afford to rent a cargo van or truck to take it to the nearest bike shop in the next county to replace the tire, i haven't got a vise so i can't do it on my own. but it is the most comfy bike i've ever ridden, i could ride it for miles despite my arthritis. it filters out the bumps like a cadillac.