Comments on: Small widget competition answer

By: Tim Abbott

Tim Abbott — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:24:02 +0000

Wow! Memories. I had one of these (the non-folding variety, in red). I remember forever adjusting the gears – it seems to be possible to have 1st & 2nd, but not 3rd, or all three gears most of the time except for when it jumps our of 2nd into ‘neutral’ at critical moments.
As a student I rode mine from Plymouth to Exeter across Dartmoor once. Made perfect sense at the time…

By: ChippyPilot

ChippyPilot — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:15:39 +0000

I’m glad I got it right, but I was not quick enough to get my answer in before the winner.

It takes me back to my teens when I used to enjoy fettling my bicycle. Particularly adjusting the Sturmey Archer 3 speed.

But, then I got a motor bike…

By: Russ

Russ — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:25:19 +0000

Dave, you’ll be amazed to know that I owned a Raleigh Twenty ‘shopper bike’ when I was about 10. It had a bright green frame, and white tyres, and was possibly the naffest bike you could imagine in the early 70s. I hated it with a passion once I realised it was decidedly uncool (then), and can still remember the deep joy I felt when I got a racer with five gears one birthday.

The 20 wasn’t a folding version, and also had a spring-loaded trap thingy behind the saddle for securing shopping, bags or possibly small items of roadkill.

Now, of course, folding bikes with small wheels (sometimes *very* small) are green, cool and highly useful. I shall follow your cycling thoughts with interest – they might encourage me to cycle to work more often (albeit on a rather boring MTB).

By: Phil Groom

Phil Groom — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:17:10 +0000

See: exactly what I said: an old Google blog spanner. It’s amazing what people use them for these days! I saw a photocopier engineer using one yesterday, but the bike’s probably as good a use as any.