What do you need? (If you are impacted by the virus)

Maybe. I mean, I'm near enough.

You'll just need to send me a list of the three nearest open pubs, for, err, triangulation purposes.

I'm in Southfields so fairly close. Let me know if I can help

She's said she needs nothing and believes she's OK.

But thank you for reassuring me that I could actually get things to her.

I am all alone in Leyton if anybody needs a delivery mule hereabouts.

Just pm me for phone number and what you need.

Went to loon Fung in Edmonton today and they are still well stocked. The cash and carry places in the area are packed and have queue to enter, while Loon doesn't have the issue. Limit to 10 packs of packaged flavoured noodles, only one 10kg bags of rice, but do have toilet paper limited to two four packs. But that includes the business 400 sheet rolls of 4 ply paper at £4.50 a pack, while200 sheet is £2,25. Commercial boxes of noodles, fruit and meats and eggs are plentiful.

Am in wood green and can help if people need help.

I'm likely to be a key worker in the weeks and months to come - currently a medical student but signed onto the volunteer roster to take pressure off colleagues in hospitals

We won't receive any money for it and I've lost my zero hours income, whilst I still have time pressures of my degree's E-learning to keep up with - so as an amateur to bike maintenance I don't have the self-isolation time or toolage to DIY everything.

There's similar people like me within my housing association (Poplar) and med school - wondering if LFGSS or anyone could safely offer some bike assistance - I'm wary about the state of my bike and how to get it sorted out before I become a high risk individual and occupational hazard!

Where are you based?
Can you share pics of the bike and what your concerns are

Happy to volunteer parts from my overflowing parts bins. Knowing this place, I'm sure many, many others would be.

Fire up the bat signal when ready.

I am mostly talking out of my ass, but Balfe's bike does a lot of volunteer bike surgery type thing for schools, no reason why they can't do this I guess.. but how safe do you think it might be if they were to set up a surgery type thing to help you and your fellows.

I don't work for Balfe's and they don't have a presence on here but I have gotten to know they very well in the last couple of years...

To anyone on here in isolation: I'm happy to offer to bring essential supplies to South London area. Based between Crystal Palace and Woolwich. I'm lucky to have a workshop that I can access with no contact with others; Happy to lend bike tools as well.

If you can get to me in Streatham Hill I’m happy to help sort bikes for key workers, have a small amount of chains, cables, pads etc too. I’ll need to do it isolated in my garage at night though probably, but I can make it happen.

Thanks all, I hate to be playing the 'health worker' card - I just hope flagging my own problems might be a way to harness LFGSS for the time to come for key workers in worse situations or transitioning to bikes as TFL becomes a health risk, and have already pointed some NHS friends here

I'm based in E14 Poplar and currently the same risk as general population or lower (no patient contact so far and distanced pre-lockdown) and to be honest I'm wary that my bike problems are the first world type - I just don't know if leaving them for 3-6 months would be a bad idea and as I don't have the time or expertise to diagnose them - so I'm aware that it's adding to my mental load

Anyways 2 problems (can detail further as needed) -
1) New mudguards contacting tyres and rattling/creaking despite seeming to have clearance
2) Inconsistent shifting (reindexed recently) and jockey wheel ticking
*Other healthcare students where I'm at have some simple punctures and rim brake issues if able to sort x

Also for the lovely people reading this thread, making the rounds in my healthcare social media bubble - the NHS still needs blood and donating qualifies as essential travel, attendance is down massively, so that's one thing I'm sure us mostly-healthy lot can do for the community

I've got a blood donation appointment booked in for next week. Was going to try and pull it forward, as lockdown seemed to be fast approaching, but my appointment is 12 weeks after my last one, so couldn't.
Will be attending. Just need to check that the central donation centre is open.

Hi all,

I haven’t been active on here for a long while and even when I was my activity was confined to bike building advice and the classifieds section but nonetheless I was hoping I might post in here regarding an initiative I’ve put in place this week to help at risk people with their shopping.

I’ve been organising a Vegetable box delivery service run by a group of volunteers from the Queens park area in NW London. We’ve partnered with a farmer who supplies a few of the farmers markets in London but who is based in Lincolnshire. The basic structure of this service is that orders will be delivered into London and then redistributed by our network of volunteers. We have two vehicles for deliveries that are further afield that is practical on a bike but for deliveries at an achievable distance we’d like to use bikes.

This is where I was hoping I might get a lead from this thread. There are plenty of volunteers with bikes but unfortunately no trailers as of yet. Is there a chance anyone knows of any bicycle trailers for hire or that could be temporarily donated to the cause?
We have deliveries covered for this week and likely next week as well but as demands grow cycle deliveries would be a great addition.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated! :)

And of course, should anyone know someone in need of the help I’ve included a link to the current form we have set up on Google forms. The order cut off for this week was yesterday so the next delivery will be the Sunday after next.

Url to form: https://forms.gle/CcwK8qpBEPe751xp9

Can anyone help?

I need an NHS contact number for PPE supplies to Pharmacies. I think it's 114 can't recall.

Bikeworks is offering delivery of supplies to pharmacies and to their patients (using e-cargo cycles)
I spoke to a desperate Pharmacist in Hammersmith who need PPE for his staff. People are walking in the pharmacy with symptoms and he's really scared for his staff. I offered to follow up on how he can source masks and gloves.

Any leads most welcome

1) What mudguards, frame, wheels and tyres do you have? While annoying, it’s unlikely to damage your bike if you can’t clearly ID a source of impact or rubbing. Worth checking out though, might save you £50 on new mudguards.
2) It would be unusual for jockey wheels to tick or click. More likely it’s the chain catching the edge of the teeth on the cassette, which can also happen on the jockeys but it’s less common. If you’ve got shifting issues in one direction (shifting up or down), then I’d look at indexing again. If you’ve indexed it and it’s still causing problems, I’d look at derailleur/ hanger alignment. If the alignment is good, or you’ve got shifting issues in both directions, I’d check for a kinked or gritty cable/housing.

If you’ve got a stand at home or somewhere that would hold the bike horizontally and allow you to spin the pedals and rear wheel, I can PM you my details and maybe I can give you diagnosis via video call/zoom/whatever.

Unfortunately never found out what the problems were - I had a mechanical failure with the cranks freezing and crashed at speed 2 days ago
Thanks for your help, though the bike and myself are both too out of action to diagnose unfortunately

Damn sorry to hear that. Hope you mend quickly.

Gah - sounds unpleasant. Hope you mend soonish - as for the bike, I'm in SE7 (so not far from the other end of the Greenwich foot tunnel) and happy to take a look at it, either here (where all my tools are) or in Poplar (albeit I'm not bringing everything ...).

I need advice.
My partner and I are both EU-citizen in the UK. All regularly registered to the pre-settle scheme, all taxpayers, etc.
Currently, I am working remotely (University of Birmingham/NHS) and I can continue with my stuff but for my partner life has became quite hard. She was doing casual shifts at the hospital as a technician but unfortunately all their weekend/casual shifts have been cancelled because the department has been re-addressed for intensive care.
Therefore, she no longer has a casual job (bank contract) and she is struggling as she was also studying in Cambridge and had to come back to Birmingham where we live.

Would you mind suggesting me a reasonable approach to ease her life a bit?
I am taking care of rent/bills/etc but it is quite hard surviving abroad with one salary only (we renting of course).

Thank you in advance,

Regards

Is she unionised? Ask her union. If her employer no longer have work available for her due to Corona, she should ask them about being furloughed. Then her employer can claim for (and pay her) 80% of her income. https://www.unison.org.uk/coronavirus-rights-work/

If you mean what to do besides money-wise, well now’s as good a time as any to take up any home centred hobbies. Keep both of your spirits up, it’s gonna be a while before things are completely back to normal.

If anyone has suggestions for how to order food online please share because waiting for Amazon will see me starve.

Thanks, really appreciated.

Her university might have bursaries/ emergency funds?

Unfortunately, due to the her EU status and the type of university training is doing, she was not allowed to apply for a grant.

The only positive thing is the fact she left the university accommodation without having to pay for April/May/June rent due to the current situation.