Monday, August 29, 2011

Unofficial Bike Lane in Singapore?!?

Stumbled across this amazing amount road space from the double yellow lines to the curb. Located at AMK St 22, this has to be an record from the said space. Have you encountered something similar? Send me pictures!

The space was so luxurious! It was like cycling on the Park Connectors and vehicles passed me with such large berth I thought I was in another country. If only more of these "mistakes" were repeated in the whole of Singapore, who needs Bike lanes?

On a side note, I have been cycling around AMK (my hometown) looking for the best makan places! And it has been fun! More on that soon (I hope!).

tags: Bike lane in Singapore

Monday, August 22, 2011

revolights

When I saw the thumbnail of this video I wasn't expecting much. However, I was pleasantly surprised!




Sunday, August 21, 2011

A visit to the shops...

Before
My 10 year old is almost kaput, i finally made the splurge and spent some $680 on a 2nd hand GT ava 3.0. I couldn't get myself to leave this frame and fork. And just the other day I had a new headset installed too $40... Upon getting the GT home, I thought I would just dump the two bikes over at C2C and pay them to swap the parts over... But after hearing that just doing would cost me some $80 in labour, I decided to get a set of bike tools and DIY the swap. The bike tools? About $98.
So I went home and started swapping... The front and rear derailleurs, front and rear hydraulic brakes, disc wheelset and crankset. Only to realise the cables and rear hydraulic brake hose were too short... Back to the bike shop... This time to a nearer SH Store, when there I inquired about the cabling and was quote $14... The uncle didn't have hydraulic fluid or the hose...

After some persuasion, i decided to trust the uncle and do up the cables... Unfortunately, at 8pm tuning of gears can take quite some time to get them dialed... The rest of the family owned shop was already packed and I offered to come back tomorrow.

Day 2
I came down, and the uncle said shifting is not instant due to an incompatible and slightly larger chain. Please go try it out... 

Well after trying out, it shifted worse than my previous drive train of deore shifters, slx cassette, slx crankset, slx front dee, xtr rear dee. Hmm... Full SLX is not da SEX?

I got of my bike and checked the rear dee alignment... To see that the rear dee high limit was out. Well maybe I could just go to C2C and ask for a free tuning :D

At C2C
They were unsurprisingly busy and had to wait some 2 hours just to change the hydraulic hose and re-bleed... Jason was really patient and did the bleeding with care, after that I just wanted the gears to be tuned... He adjusted the rear high limit as I expected than when checking the tension of the rear dee cable notice the housing for the derailleurs are actually brake housing... He asked about them and I said I just had them replaced... He told me to go back to ask if they can be changed as to do the tuning and change of housing would cost me some $25. Brake Housing will stretch after some use... This part of the hose he used derailleur housing, old one. Second hand?

Back at SH Store
Uncle says it doesn't matter, brake housing is larger than derailleur housing and shouldn't affect the shifting much! As a matter of fact, bigger housing means easier time oiling the cables and if mud gets in between, performance wouldn't suffer as much! He than pointed me to a few of his loyal/regular customers outside his shop. Repeating that C2C only likes to deal with new bikes and don't know how to fix my bike.

I will have to stop here, and just come straight to the conclusion I wanted to make. 

Conclusion
Sometimes, the art of tuning a bicycle can really boil down to rivalry between bike shops, misunderstandings, lack of knowledge and simply a difference of opinions and preferences.

To satisfy myself, would probably mean doing everything myself or putting all my trust in one or using a lot of time to research/try it out myself.

Other than putting all my trust into one, the rest is terribly time consuming.

Next steps
What will I do? What will you do?

1. Ride and hope for the best.
2. Change the chain at SH store.
3. Change the housing and cables at C2C
4. But new chain, cables and housing and DIY.


After: about 8pm last night.

Again, school is taking most of my time. So much to write but so little time. I will update my next steps... Riding and maintenance, truly symbiotic..

tags: bike shop rivalry 

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Ikea bike storage solution?

A closer look...

Sure it is nicely out of the way, but I think i probably wouldn't want to screw and unscrew the stem and starnut screws...

How do you store your bike to maximize space?

School has started, and there is almost no time to blog... Hope you like dualcircle's new look, till next time!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Flying Pigeons...

No no, not thoses... Theses! :

 
Courtesy of:

 
Courtesy of a friend in facebook.. It has since been stolen... Please help keep a look out!



I have seen them in black, red and green. Apparently there's a blue version... View more lovely FPs here.

My hands are pretty itchy to get one... But my house arldy no space...

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Noticed these signs recently...

When I got back to Singapore in June, I noticed this huge signs about Crime Alert in the area... Is this happening in you neighbourhoods too? Are the police really stepping up on bicycle theft?

If would appear so, recent newspaper articles also suggest culprits are being nabbed! Cheers!

tags: crime alert sign

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Help keep a look out guys for the bike thief!

Police are looking for the man shown in the photo (above) to assist with investigations into a case of bicycle theft at Dakota MRT Station on Friday, March 11, 2011.

The man has a dark complexion, a clean-shaven head and is believed to be in his 30s or 40s.

He was last seen wearing a red and orange short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans, and carrying a red and black sling bag.

Anyone with information on the man is requested to call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000.

All information will be kept strictly confidential.

Source: http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1Story20110805-292898.html


Keep a look out and lets help lower down the bike thieves in Singapore! 


As a note, I have heard many a stories on how people lost their bikes and approaches the SMRT staff for video evidence only to be given an answer the the CCTVs picked up the thieves but pictures are so pixelated that the culprit couldn't be identified. Seeing that this theft happened outside Dakota MRT a relatively new station would most definitely mean that the newer stations have better CCTVs! So if you have a choice, park your bicycle at a new MRT station! Paranoid me!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Chapter 2 Cycle!


The owner Ben, used to be my cycling khaki some 10+ years ago... When I was around Secondary 1 or 2 which meant I was 13 or 14 yo... And now i'm 24... Yup! 10 years! He build my first bike up for me absolutely free of charge in his own home when he had not setup a bicycle shop yet!

Chapter 2 Cycle has service quality and value for money as its top strengths to me, go down and give them a visit!

http://www.chapter2cycle.com/

Monday, August 1, 2011

Creaking headset!

I noticed a lot of play from my headset area and when you lock your front brake and rocked the bike forwards and backwards there was a loud clicking sound that was quite franking was freaking me out. Simple braking to slow my bike down and was terrifying at the thought that maybe the headset would give way, or worse the frame was too old (Some 10 years) and the headtube was gone. And so before a night cycling event for NTU Sportcamp, I brought my bike down to C2C.

There I waited for Nat to inspect my bike and try to find the problem, I suspected maybe the headset was worn. He tried finding the problem but couldn't... So I suggested that I just leave it and get a whole new bike altogether...

Until Ben (Shop owner) came over and inspected... Than continued on to strip my headset (I think he had the idea that I just wanted to change the headset, might as well, $20 headset for 10 years about time). While taking off the stem cap, we saw the screw was slanted! On closer inspection when the stem cap was off, the star nut inside has actually corroded so much that one of the sides broke:



Ben threw in a free carbon spacer for me too! <3



New Ciari headset! Woo hoo! No more creaks!