Bike!

[lnr]

Have bought new bike, or rather Richard has bought me one. Ridgeback Comet, 19" ladies frame. Added mudguards, rack, stand and lock for just over 300 quid total. Have note of frame number and will be getting it postcoded ASAP and seeing how much extra it costs on the household insurance to insure it away from the house.

http://www.ridgeback.co.uk/bikes/2004/bike.asp?seriesid=21&index=3

The daft low gear is hilarious. Tried it in the lowest gear and it felt like pedalling with the chain off! Anyway, it is nice.

I have only one problem though. Lights. Here is a copy of a post I have just made to a few local newsgroups, perhaps someone here can help?

From: Eleanor Blair <ecb39@cam.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: ucam.adverts.wanted,ucam.adverts.forsale,cam.misc
Subject: FS/WTD Bike lights/brackets
Date: Sat Dec 06 15:52:27 GMT 2003
Organization: Keeper of the Purity Scores

Having recently had a bike stolen I have the following lights but no
brackets for them:

Cateye TL-LD500 rear light.  3 LEDs.  Both flashing and steady modes.
Takes 2 AAA batteries.  I can supply with batteries, either ordinary or
NiMH rechargeables.  Newer 5 LED version shown at:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/v2_product_detail.asp?ProdID=4000000423

Cateye Opticube front light.  1 LED - very bright.  100 hour life at
full brightness, 300 hours total life.  Takes 4 AA batteries.  Seen
here:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/v2_product_detail.asp?ProdID=5300004479

I'm either looking for buyers, or looking for someone who can sell me
brackets that will fit.  Looking for offers around 10-15 quid for the
pair of lights.  Will pay around a tenner for brackets.

I do have a spare bracket for a Cateye HL-LD500W Front LED somewhere:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/v2_product_detail.asp?ProdID=4000000721

Free to anyone who wants it.

-- 
lnr@lspace.org                                 http://lnr.livejournal.com/

Comments

[catyak]

If you lived somewhere with proper hills you'd appreciate the low gear.

D

[mpinna.livejournal.com]

The bike looks very nice :-)

That rear light looks very similar to mine. It's hard to tell from the picture if it's identical and the connector is the same, but if it is I have here a spare bracket for it that you could have. It's missing a screw, but I could probably find a spare at work on Monday (having managed to find an identical one there for the same purpose a couple of weeks back).

Can't help with the front one I'm afraid. Have you been to Ben Hayward in town though? They're where I got my spare Cateye brackets, so you'll probably find they have what you need.

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

The bikeshop at the bottom of Regent Street, near the turning onto Lensfield Road does spare CatEye brackets. That's where I got mine after my most recent bike theft incident.

Insurance...

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

I decided in the end that the total cost of insuring my bike for out of the house ('bout 45 quid) plus the excess if it did get nicked (50) was more than the actual value of my bike. Yours is worth more than mine, though :)

[lnr]

Aha, that would be pretty handy for me on the way into work. They're Howes iirc.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

I got replacement brackets from the town branch of Halfrods.

Nice bike, too :)

[lnr]

Ordered some from my usual online bike shop in the end

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

Yes, they're the ones, you do rc.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

28x34? On a 700x38c wheel that's good for 4 mph at 60rpm (which is low cadence for flat ground, but not unexpected when shoving up a hill); I tend to feel gears don't actually need to go lower than walking pace unless you're going to move very heavy loads, because you could always walk...

LNR; Cateye are quite good about keeping spares on the market; any dealer who sells the lights should sell the brackets.

[catyak]

I have to admit I rarely used the lowest gears on my bike even when doing the climb out of the Stroud Valley (500ft up in either 1 mile or 0.7 miles depending on which way I was going). As you say, if walking is faster...

I reckon I could have done with some higher gears for the trip down, it was hard to pedal fast enough to exceed about 35-40mph.

D

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Probably not; at very high speeds the aerodynamic penalty for flapping your legs about exceeds the useful gain, and you may as well do nothing.

The breakeven point's higher if you're extremely strong, obviously, but even then the gains are probably so small that you are best to conserve your effort for the next uphill stretch.

I went from a low 39x28 (on 700x25c) to 39x34 and then to 34x34 when I moved to Bracknell, since there are some significant hills if you go further afield, but that seems far enough to me...