bike abuse

saturnsc2

here's yet another rant from saturnsc2. it seems like i'm doing a lot of that here lately eh? anyway it annoys me to kingdom come to see how bicycles are just abused. i'm a person who will spend a day polishing every spoke, & every piece of metal on my bike. i wax all the paint & use armor all on the rubber parts. i'm a detailing freak. nothing's to good for my babies. anyway, i see people just throw their bikes down even though they have a kickstand. i see bikes standing in the rain all rusty. bikes just smashed together on carrying racks all banged up. i see people pickup bikes & throw them over fences. i know that a lot of these bikes might be just cheap ones, but they still are nice when they were new. why treat them in this fashion? anybody else annoyed by this too? it almost gets to me as much as idiot drivers do...

Hypnospin

after the next detailing and before the next ride, you must roll through some sandy puddles to get the serious roadie splatter or risk being suspect of not actually riding the thing...




[QUOTE=saturnsc2]here's yet another rant from saturnsc2. it seems like i'm doing a lot of that here lately eh? anyway it annoys me to kingdom come to see how bicycles are just abused. i'm a person who will spend a day polishing every spoke, & every piece of metal on my bike. i wax all the paint & use armor all on the rubber parts. i'm a detailing freak.

chch_legend

Different strokes for different folks I suppose.


Have you ever considered you spend too much time cleaning your bike and not enough time riding it....last time I looked the bike companies round the world were still making them.

saturnsc2

not really. i'm aware they still make bikes, but unfortunally they are made mostly in china these days. i'm dismayed to see bikes with popular american names like: huffy, murray, schwin, trek, ect. that have a little white sticker on the front of them that says: "made in china" i love the fact that my bikes say on them: made in "u.s.a".

MountainPro

i ride a mtb so i get covered in a lot of crap when i am out riding....i give the bike a quick spray with a hose and a bit of lube on the chain and moving bits..

i dont have time to spend polishing every nut and bolt just to get it covered in crap again...

the general rule for me is if you can see the colour of the frame paint then its clean.

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jhuskey

Pro, you are way to detailed oriented for me. If I can differentiate my Trek MTB from my Look KG and get air in the tires and oil the hardware ocassionally I am good to go.

What's a kick stand?

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Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

wilmar13

guess where the your the majority of your bike was actually made (components) anyway... IMO you need to ride your bike more and clean less, as long as your chain is clean and lubed, your tires have air in them, and there is nothing broken on your bike (that you notice) you are good to go... besides you could let the made in china sticker covered in dirt and you will never know the difference.

chch_legend

That may be so, but can you tell the different between a handbuilt Italian or US frame when comparing it to a frame made in China....I'm thinking not.

Maybe you are one of these Latte racer types who won't ride in the rain for fear of melting, or getting the bike dirty. You ride 15-20 kms or miles in your language, then spend the next 3 hours in a cafe telling everyone and anyone who happens to be in earshot how great the ride was, how fast you were and how you beat Joe up the Cat 1 climb, or rail over pass.

Get over it, & yourself and just ride. Obviuosly you have been inhaling the toxins in the cleaning fluid too much, get some fresh are in your lungs before it too late.

friedmikey

Please don't tell me you Armor All your tires. If you do, may I say, "Get well soon." Trust me, you'll need it sooner than later.

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..:: M t T a m B i k e s ::..

Durangodave

Hey now..... the guy was complaining about people who leave their bikes in the RAIN, etc. I hate seeing a perfectly good bike (wherever it was made) rotting out in the rain. And, I'm not talking about it getting a little wet while you're sipping your latte, I'm talking about leaving it in the yard half the winter.

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"I must (deride me not) be somewhere where I can, without disaster, bicycle." Henry James, 1896

chch_legend

Thats fine, if people want to leave their trusty steed in the rain let me do it, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over what someone else does with there own property.

Maybe he should spend more time riding and spreading the cycling revolution than worry about what someone else is doing or not doing.

davidmc

You make some valid points. When it comes right down to it, some people just do not realize/appreciate what they have until it's gone. These people may be the one's George Carlin referred to in his treatise on the # of moron's/imbeciles one encounters on any given day. His estimation was there are too many to count. Also, the armor-all thing.....you're scaring me

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I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
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Durangodave

I'm taking the bait.....
Aren't you worrying just a bit about what HE's doing? Let's face it, its FUN to worry about what other people are doing from time to time. YOU'RE doing it. I'M doing it.

And while I'm at it: VIVA the CYCLING REVOLUTION!!!

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"I must (deride me not) be somewhere where I can, without disaster, bicycle." Henry James, 1896

saturnsc2

i armor-all my tires