The Bike Blog

Lights are essential, but can be a pain. Batteries need replacing and aren’t very green, and dynamos suck every ounce of energy out of you. This tutorial, from Freelights, teaches you to make a nifty frictionless dynamo that works on electromagnetic induction/magic.

They still won’t work when you stop, but you can’t have everything.

City Bikes have an article on the 5 things to avoid on your next bicycle. There’s some good advice in there about choosing a bike that’s going to fit you, and that’s going to do what you want it to do.

Owning a bicycle is like owning a pair of shoes. That $200 pair you love and have worn for years, they were a much better deal and more economical than the $20 pair you got on sale and wore once or twice because something wasn’t quite right.

If you live in London it’s definitely worth having a look at the TfL cycle page, where you can pick up some free cycle maps.

Mine only took a few days to come, and they show you the routes recommended by other cyclists, routes with cycle lanes and other useful info like location of bike shops.

The TfL journey planner can also give you a route between two post codes. It gives you a nice PDF that you can print out and keep with you.

I wish I’d seen this before I got the first scratch on my Dawes. I was being as careful as I could be with it, but you never know what happens to it when it’s locked up. A van backed into my bike a while ago while it was chained - I need a new brake lever because of that.

Sure, wrapping innertubes around your frame isn’t pretty, but at least you know that underneath all that rubber your frame is pristine. It’s good recycling as well.