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@Seak - thanks, never fails to cheer me the fuck up. [/it's a forum affair]

It's a core component of my 'it's a nice day and I'm going to stand in the road' soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14yEO8nfqxE

I'm studying for an MA in the evening, and it seems alright to me. Not around in the day, but there are plenty of people milling around, so probably a decent community.

Main tip: the coffee in the little stationery shop downstairs is about a third the price of that in Costa, and seems to taste better too.

Some bullshit about brakes and hipsters or something in the Aussie press today.

Best. Quote. Ever.

'Ms Strickland said the fixie craze was at least healthier than other youth trends. "You take (fixies) away from them, they start doing graffiti, they start taking drugs.'"

This is so true: I went on holiday once, three days away from the bike and I was mainlining smack and tagging shit up like it was going out of style. Arrived back in London, just had to look at the bike to kick the habit.

You don't have to put up a sign - get two staff members to advertise the shop to passing cyclists, standing right at the bit where they'd ride up on the pavement. Of course, if by doing so you delay their ride onto the pavement enough for them to notice the Keystone Cops, then all the better.

My gf and I got fed up with cyclists getting pulled in front of us while we were having coffee outside a cafe in Islington. We took to hailing them all and pointing to the cops. Cyclists dismount, CPSOs get frustrated and bugger off somewhere else. Only took 10mins and two stops before they got the message.

So what you're saying is that he should write an article about whatever, take the money and prepare for a shitstorm of people making the same arguments over and over again.

Nah dude, he should do what the Guardian is best known for at the moment: crowd-sourcing content (well, that and massive tax avoidance). Basically, we write the article, together, and then Ol' Sparky whacks it on the website. It's like Consequences, but with meedja gubbins.

I'll start:

*There's a new craze sweeping London... one which every other newspaper has covered to death. *

Oi Sparky:

There really is no need to write the article. Someone has already done it... just cut and paste this: http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2007/12/genuine-article-reporting-on-fixed-gear.html into the little blog box on the Grauniad website, insert a few house-style typos, and you're sorted.

Anyway, for the love of all that is holy, please use your first paragraph to explain that even 'brakeless' fixed-wheels do in fact have a rear brake. Otherwise we'll proactively brake in traffic, resulting in the afore-mentioned genocide in Africa.

Ask yourself: do you want to be held responsible when Bono and Geldof launch Live Aid 3: Fixed That For You to clear up the mess?

This is the sort of outcome that we were aiming at with our campaign against bike theft. Very good work. I do hope it gets extended and wipes out enough of this crime to make a tangible difference.

I should probably say that I approve of the scheme, just found it funny that they'd issued a caution to the two chaps caught with a van full of stolen bikes.

Standard reports on new 'jogger lanes' intiative by attention-seeking charity: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23863273-now-the-joggers-want-their-own-cycle-style-lanes.do

Also, new police tactics on bike thievery reap rewards... and offenders cautioned using very firm tone of voice: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23863285-gone-in-9-minutes-bikes-stolen-to-order.do

Sounds like you found one of the ones with over-tightened brakes. Seems a batch of over-zealous Serco peeps went buckwild with their spanners.

I'll have a cow bike

Loads and loads of XS and XXL stuff, lots of hats (including boxes of the Belgian winter ones), lots of Cross 3/4 bibs and some jerseys, lots of 28 inch shorts, lots of horrid blue touring shorts, few boxes of white Fixed shirts, some base layers, lots of pocket T-shirts. There were some womens things too.

Probably not worth going down just for what's left unless you're of plentiful waistline or need a hat or they restock before the morning.

Thanks Spybot (and also for not UTFSing).

What time is this marvellous sample sale / hipster fight going to take place, and is it at Condor?

What Russ have you got?

I'm restoring a Russ track at the minute. I might have spare seat/head badge transfers, if you need them.

It's a 1940s E.F. Russ of Battersea (I assume there's only one Russ?) path bike, gold decals on red (I'll get the paint job redone, but keep the colour). Could certainly do with some decals, assuming they're the same, as I've done nothing about getting hold of any yet.

"There are days when the wind is against you... and there are days when you are strong."

No idea who said it first... was told it by an ex-colleague.

Didn't they also fire the reception staff and hire agency workers? Seem to recall reading that in Private Eye...

Almost as bad as the New Statesman having a no union policy.

This pre-supposes that everyone is inherently greedy. I think we're socialised to be greedy. Changing our spending habits changes supply, because demand drives supply. Corps only make what they think they can sell. If no one buys unethically produced clothing, where's the incentive to make it?

From memory, Tiswas was quoting Adam Smith's market theory, which remains the standard 'how the market works' textbook (although lots of people have disagreed with it since). The problem is that companies drop their prices until people buy things.

That, and the public memory is short ... so articles about how Primark were caught using illegal immigrants and paying below the minimum wage have little effect on consumers shopping there.

But yes, back to discussion about shoes :)

Hetchins with two speed fixed hubs, integrated headset and charter lea chainset.

Want. I'm not sure about the bar tape though, although it's doubtless period correct and everything.

All these lovely old bikes are making me want to build up the Russ which has been lurking in my shed for far too long.

As Wiganwill says, you end up having to defend your choice of campaign or issue or whatever against lots of people who think that some issue they've picked out of the air and defined as more important.

Anyway, we all know that the gradual spread of Creates throughout the city is the greatest crime of all...

If that is what is really pissing you off, then I reckon you must be doing pretty alright for yourself.

By all means have a go at the guy, but I'm not sure where this whole 'you're comfortably off so quit bitching' attitude comes from. I mean, surely we want people to keep caring about what their city looks like, rather than getting all fat and wealthy* and oblivious to all that's around them?

That said, the colour of the highways is surely the least of our concerns... That they are downright dangerous in places and discourage us from using the whole of the road / buslane seems to be of greater concern than yet another bit of the UK flogged off to the highest bidder.

*Not that the OP is... I mean he might be, I've not met him...

Our 16x 1 3/8 wheels propelled us at an average of 27.4 kph over the duration which pissed off plenty of carbon warriors off no end.
A coulple of pub stops, the food stop and the fantastic new addition of the bacon roll and cuppa stop late on plus a fair few others equated to a total time of 9.5 hours.

We were riding along when there was this 'whoosh! woosh!' like the typical roadie train... and we saw you guys absolutely flying along. Turned to each other with looks of stunned amazement.

Nice work keeping that pace up over the distance... that's the same total time we did, but I guess we stopped less because we weren't going so quick overall.

If 66% is the figure then 94.36 tonnes of PM10 particles are emitted by buses.

They say 78% of NOx emissions are buses, which means 2008-09 they emitted 6333.6 tonnes of NOx into the London air.

Part of the problem with identifying what the levels of emissions (of both sorts) are is that the report mixes and matches its language like it's going out of style. The 44% is of 'reported emissions' - does that include cars (i.e. non-TFL emissions)? The 78% of NOX is just TFL, so ignores private cars, etc.

But yeah, we need occupancy rate data to really understand what the craic is. On a side note, apparently cabs have an occupancy of less than one, because the driver doesn't count and they spend so long empty trawling for trade.

Great fun - my first DD and about four times further than I've ridden in one go before.

Left at 8 with some ex-colleagues from CTC and caned it (well, it felt like that at the time) to the feedstation. Several hours of self-doubt which vanished as the sun came up. Hit the beach with energy to spare... before realising that we had to head to Ipswich. Arrived many, many hours later with knees in total agony, and am now limping like a complete fettle.

Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Best moment? Being overtaken by Team Brompton who were flooring it along before the feedstop. Seriously, how fast can 20inch wheels carry you? The mind boggles.

In the end, businesses can adapt, it didn't halt the economy in London, but merely adapted it, and those who didn't adapt to the change end up being shafted.

There's a good argument that getting unnecessary car use down frees up road space for business users. So yeah, £8 or a tenner or whatever on one day's work, but an extra call out because you're not stuck behind a bunch of cars with just one person in. It's why many business people want road user charging on motorways, so that they can clear all the doley scum out of the way and cane it about.

GLA / BoJo reckon that congestion costs London £2 billion a year, although I think people have bitched about the methodology they used to arrive at that sum. Anyway, if you're buying a sofa from a West London bookshop, you can probably spare £8, which just gets absorbed into the cost of the sofa anyway. Besides, what's wrong with this?