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Roland outside the LAHORE KEBAB HOUSE off commercial road

-steam mode-
somewhere in June, I jumped a red light at a pedestrian crossing in Lower Thames street, after slowing down to see that there isn't anyone crossing the street. Stupid to do, that slowing down thing, as a few meters later, a bobby jumped from behind the corner and grabbed my handlebars. I should have ran over him but I didn't, too good for this world as I am. Anyway the man give me a ticket which I lost the same day (I am very talented in losing stuff) and I kind of forgot about the whole thing.
A few weeks later, I moved house and last week I found two letters in my old flat (my old flatmates are also good in losing stuff), saying my fine went up from £30 to £45. bonus. joy. I tried to pay the fine online but that didn't work. I tried to call them but they didn't answer. I emailed them but they probably don't know how that works.
Today, I found another letter in my old flat, from a bailiff office. A really special letter, as they charge £50 to write those kind of letters. That puts the total of what I had to pay on £95: £30 for the funny man jumping in front of my bike + £15 for the two first letters + £50 for the last letter.
Luckily the bailiff's call centre did answer to help me get rid of my money, and extremely helpful as they were, they even charged me an extra pound for paying with my debit card, paying with credit card is more expensive. (I'm paying to pay them???) Total price for this interesting package: £96.

oh ja, and also:
as I saw that bike on bricklane today, I tried to look for it on this forum. But the 'stolen bikes' - thread is a bit messy, as mentioned before: stolen bikes, found bikes, tips on locking up and condolences... full of good intentions as we're all friendly people but not too useful.
a separate blog might be a good idea for the future, but for now it might be easier to make a category for stolen bikes with separate threads for every bike [with basic info in the topic and extended info and pictures in the thread]. Easier to find.
[Maybe we also need a thread for found bikes, where we can all post pictures of ugly dodgy people selling beautiful nice bikes, so we can all memorise their faces and hunt for them all the time]

Living pretty close to brick lane, I tend to strawl down the market on Sunday sometimes. I haven't really seen many fixedgears among the obviously stolen bikes yet but today, I saw
a black (and gray?) Fuji Track bike, small (think about 54?)
couldn't really see it well as the police was already talking to the pimpled seller, and a few minutes later, both bike and police were gone, they might have taken it. If you think it's yours, might be worth calling the police about it before they auction the bike...

@ peejay78
it was amazing, that smalltown cycle culture is probably about the only thing the Belgian in me is proud of, relive it (a bit) here

do you have a picture of the drop bars? how wide are they?

just got back from belgium on Monday and now I find this on ebay.be:
,
€350 and you could probably get it for less since no-one seems to be interested. And from the same guy:

for €125, way too small for me but I guess I could make someone happy with it here. Does anyone know what it would cost to ship these to London? what's the cheapest company to do it with? [shit, I so wish I'd seen this last week...]

hippy Unless you're in the habit of buying multi-million pound properties.. they're gonna be hard to boycott ;)

ah those guys... The rebel who is me has been boycotting them for about 26 years now

stop laughing, that's my dad!

trust me, 3 layers of coke-can immersed in areldite (epoxy glue) is quite the opposite of fixing cosmetically: it looks ugly and it's stronger than the rest of that seat-stay. Although I must admit the result comes nowhere near hippy's machine, that must be the mothership of all bicycles... love it

right, brief update: I'm riding it and I'm loving it, I fixed the seat-stay dent with loads of areldite and a coke-can [homemade composites], put it all together with the bunch of parts I got get my hands on for not too much money and it looks like this:

Thanks for the advice!
@Roberto: It doesn't look like a crash, maybe the frame was stolen once and this is the damage of the lock or something?
@Stef: You're totally right but I wasn't really looking for 'as good as new', which is why I'm using this old frame...
Seems not too many people think it's smart to ride it, so I'll try and take it down to Whitcomb for some advice. although I'm afraid I won't have the money to have it repaired. Does anyone have an idea on how much this is going to cost me? Also, if anyone knows a way I can fix this myself, I'm still up for some 'bricolage'...

From unxetas, I got this beautiful 1975 Holdsworth lightweight frame, which I'm planning to build into a beautiful fixedgear. Unfortunately, it has a few pretty big dents and since the tubing is pretty thin already, I was wondering how stupid it would be to ride this.

There's two smaller dents on the seattube and downtube but there's a pretty big one on the right seatstay. I'm posting it here because I'm expecting my local bike-shop to say it's pretty bad and than tell me they happen to have this beautiful frame I can buy. I just don't have the money for a new frame or to get this repaired by a frame-builder.
So I want to know how dangerous it is riding this but was also considering some frame-DIY on the seatstay-dent [bike-purists, don't read on, it gets nasty]. What if I rap the tin plate of a coke-can around the big dent a few times with a lot of epoxy-glue in between, creating a lightweight composite material? [did I hear anyone say Macgyver-generation?]

I need a crankpuller and a chainbreaker. What's the best/cheapest place to buy them?

I was using an old Holdsworth frame to build my first fixed gear until the dropout broke off when I tried to take off the derailer. check post with pictures here:
http://www.londonfgss.com/discussion/935/i-am-looking-for-an-old-racing-bike-frame/
So I'm really interested in the bike, the reactions I got on my post were all about newer frames and I'd like to use an old frame and parts to build my bike. (I already have a nice old seat and a wheelset)
Let me know what you want for it. cheers Tuur
feel free to email me at meneer{at}tuurvanbalen.com

I'm still looking for a frame, preferably with fork and BB...

CRM2943, I'm definitely interested, how much do you want for it and where/when could I come to pick it up? Let me know on my email: meneer{at}tuurvanbalen{dot}com or on my mobile 07726423095. Thanks! Tuur

@Tommy: Once the bike is build, I'll give you a shout to pass over the remains
@Simon: I won't be able to get to Sussex as soon as I hope to get my bike rolling. So if you can sell it to someone else [provenrad] earlier, go ahead! Do let me know if you haven't sold it by the time you're coming to London though.
In the mean time, I'll be here, hoping for other interesting offers like this...

all, thanks for the friendly tips and offers.
@Edmundane: I don't think the frame is worth rebuilding, it looks beautiful but isn't really special. the dropout came off because it is weakened by the little screw, helping you position the wheel so I guess the other dropout is pretty weak as well. I was hoping to get a cheap old race frame but I might be able to take a bit of a loan somewhere if the option is really 'attracktive'. What are you selling?
@Simon: Thanks for your offer, sounds really good and I'm definitely interested but I'm afraid I just can't come down to Sussex these weeks. Do let me know if you are coming to London though...
@Jos: of nen eddy merckx natuurlijk

I had this really beautiful racing bike frame -check those lugs- and last weekend I finally got enough money together to buy some parts and build my fixed gear. So I spend a few hours on Saturday taking apart the headset, cleaning it, greasing it, putting it back together. On Sunday, I bought a second hand wheelset of the Chinese friend on Brick Lane market [art students can't afford Brick Lane Bikes].
So right before I finally start putting things together, I try to take off the beautiful vintage campagnolo derailer which results in breaking off the drop-out bit of the frame... snurghl, there goes my weekend, there goes the hope of finally ditching my specialized rockhopper.

So I'm looking for an old racing bike frame [with horizontal dropouts], the lighter the better... I'm around 1.86 tall so I guess I need a 56 -59 frame? And yes, I realise a track frame would be sweeter but I'm afraid I can't afford that at the moment. So if you were still keeping your grandpa's old racing bike in the back of the shed, it might be time to do something more useful with that space... email me:
meneer{at}tuurvanbalen{dot}com
Thanks for helping out! Tuur //PS: nice vintage derailer, anyone?