London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

An undesirable tried to steal my Bianchi Pista outside the Texas Embassy nr Trafalger Square and bent both front and rear rims. Should I look at getting them repaired or should I start hunting down some replacements in the classifieds? I think thats all thats damaged but I havent brung myself to unlock it yet :-{

appreciate I havent got a picture to should but the rims but I am just curious if I should get my hopes up that they can be repaired.

Thanks

Bad luck dude, but at least they don't have your bike!

The rims will unfortunately be beyond repair, but if your hubs are in good order, just get someone on here to build you some new ones around some nice new rims - arup built my wheels and they're fantastic http://www.yogarup.com/wheels/

If they are a bit out you could just retrue them. If they are a lot out, you have to undo all the spokes, bend the rims back fairly straight and then rebuild.

The wheels will be prone to coming out of true very easily in the future if they got bent, and the spoke tension is likely to be rather uneven. But you can get some pretty fucked wheels straight and rideable.

If I were you, I'd collect it sooner rather than later. A bike that someone has obviously tried to nick, and that hasn't been collected by its owner will be a pretty good target for more thieves.

I've collected it now! it seems like the front is a replacement job and the rear could be salvagable.

This just tops off a shite weekend - I found a mayonnaise like substance on my coolant cap on saturday!

Thanks for the replies, I'll be posted in the wanted thread soon!

Have you had much luck reparing the damage? Theres a few wheelbuilders on here which seem to do stuff for incredible rates, a rim + some time from one of them will probably be your best & cheapest bet.

On the mayo, its evidence of moisutre in your oil. In any other part of the country thats bad, but in london if you have a car that does a LOT of short journeys and sat unused for long periods of time (more than 5days at a time) its to be expected in small quantities. take it for a 100mile+ trip every once in a while. or could actually be headgasket/water pump seeping :/

Mayo in the coolant doesn't mean a fucked engine. If you do a lot of short (under 10/15mi) then general condensation will be building up causing mayo. Not necessarily a buggered HG.

Wouldn't be surprised if they stamped on your wheels because they couldn't steal the bike. Luckily nobody's attempted anything on any of mine.

Wot Oz says. Hard to find a filler cap without some mayo on cars that do short journeys in this weather. If the oil doesn't get up to temp, it doesn't shift.

+ check the thermostat - can cause white gunk if faulty.