How it all started

Recently, I've stumbled again upon a nice slide show of vintage messenger pictures I saw in YouTube almost a year ago. I loved the bikes, all of them fixed gear, with no brakes in sight, and lovely swept-back handlebars: the classic scorcher in its full glory. I have also enjoyed the attitude of the kids who scratched a living riding these bikes and delivering small parcels, telegrams, and letters. Wonderfull stuff!!


Many thanks to the people of Messmedia for putting this slide show together.

To beat a thief

Bike theft is the curse of all urban cyclists. You always have to carry a good and heavy lock with you, look for good places to secure your bike especially if it is going to be left out-of-sight for more than ten minutes, and deal with the nagging thought if it is still going to be there when you come back after your errand. Unfortunately, that's something we have to get used to live with.

However, there are certain tips to reduce the chances to have your pride and joy nicked. Here you can learn some of them from this excellent article which appeared recently in the CTC magazine.

Apart from showing that the Sold Secure Certificate is a complete shame, the author invites a professional thief to show him how to get through different locks using the most popular tools of the "trade", among them the bolt croppers and the bottle jack. It is a long article but well-worth reading as it gives you a very good insight of how thieves operate, the way they go through the locks, and therefore what can you do to prevent your bike being the next target of this scum.

The better your bike is secured, the most difficult would be for the thief to get it!!

First Pic of my newly built KONA SS

Well, first entry on this blog and first pic of my newly rebuilt Kona SS for off-road purposes. A brief description of bike: this is one of the old skool KONA frames made of lightweight steel. Classic MTB geomety and a pleasure to ride. Previous incarnation as a SS commuter bike rolling on slicks and having a taller gear. Now it has been adapted to what it was originally designed to do: off-road riding where it really comes into its own. Here is a pic taken last weekend. Shame that the camera ran out of batteries and couldn't take more.

As soon as I have some spare time (and more pics) I will post a more detailed description of the bike and its building process.