Comments on: 05/24/2012 – Today’s Special

By: Widsith

Widsith — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:41:43 +0000

I used the so-called “wheel bender” racks for many years and never had a bent wheel. I’d still use them if they were available, but these days it’s rare to see a rack of any kind (I only know of one rack anywhere near where I live).

By: Opus the Poet

Opus the Poet — Fri, 25 May 2012 02:31:09 +0000

I think using an angle grinder in the middle of the sidewalk would tend to attract a bit too much of the wrong kind of attention for a thief…

By: K'Tesh

K'Tesh — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:33:10 +0000

Too often they are they are too crowded because of how tight they pack bikes in.

For the bikes using the upper part of the wave, they can be hard to secure your bike to due to the width/height of handlebars. Using the lower part, you have to lift a tire over the bar, which can be dificult due to the tight packing of other bikes, and when someone removes their adjacent bike, you have a possiblilty of your bike falling over and getting damaged. They just suck. Staple racks are pretty hard to overcrowd. Typically two bikes, occasionally four, but they aren't packed to the point of damaging your (or other's) ride.

By: Pierre

Pierre — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:58:31 +0000

I’m with you on this – my commuter is “the ratbike”, covered in reflective tape and a good layer of road dirt. I keep the moving parts working well, of course, but everything else stays grubby – the Campag Record front hub and Phil Wood rear are more or less unidentifiable beneath the greasy layers!

By: BHNelson

BHNelson — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:50:17 +0000

I just had to get creative when visiting a riding buddy in the hopital who crashed over the weekend (btw, GET A ROAD ID–DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT). Anyway, I didn’t have a lock, and they had the wave-form bike racks. So I did the only thing I could think of: I loosened the seat clamp, collapsed the seat, rolled it under the top of the wave, re-extended/retightened, and pocketed my bike tool. When I came back all was well, though someone did pinch my bottle cage. This will not work with a quick-release, of course, but it worked in a pinch for me. I can live with losing the bottle cage if it means keeping the bike!

By: KarlOnSea

KarlOnSea — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:47:35 +0000

Over here they’re called Sheffield stands, and also come in concreted-in versions.

The fact is that there’s no such things as a theft-proof bike. When you lock your bike anywhere, all you can hope to do is make your bike less attractive than the competition. That means a good lock, securing the easily removable high-value parts (wheels, saddle), and as Dale says, don’t have the most blinged up bike in the rack.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:49:22 +0000

As an aside, is Joe having a little marriage trouble at home? First he’s on the recumbent guy and now he’s smashing bikes. Seems like he has a lot of agression lately.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:46:51 +0000

The staple racks give me the shivers. 30 seconds with a wrench and it’s off the pavement and the bike is gone. If the city decides to weld the nuts (haven’t seen them do it yet) then it’s 60 seconds with a grinder. Waveforms at least have a little meat to them and at least here they are actually cemented into the ground. The tall wheel benders are ok for the reasons eric mentions. The short wheel benders are the ones I find useless or at best extremely inconvenient if you don’t have a cable.

By: Yolanda

Yolanda — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:36:05 +0000

With a basket on front and rack plus trunk on back, with fat cruiser tires, I find these racks nearly useless. Some can be used to hold the front wheel straight while it’s on the kickstand and I can run a lock cable through wheel and frame. Mostly I like to lean against a pole or similar. If i was building a store and wanted to make room for bikes, I’d fasten a series of upright braces on the wall about six feet apart and let people lean up against them to lock up.

By: enigmaT120

enigmaT120 — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:32:57 +0000

What’s wrong with the wave racks? So long as the cross section isn’t too fat for my U-lock to fit around, anyway.