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June 30th, 2011 admin
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I recently posted an article about parking your bike in the city; as I expected, it's turning into its own mini-series. Having posted the first one, I've been all the more conscious of parking facilities for bikes when I've been out and about the place; more to the point, I've actually remembered to take a couple of pictures! So, as promised in the title, here are a couple of real stinkers.
They're both in pretty much the same place, outside a library in a suburb of the city where I live. The worse of the two is clearly not used any more (and, when you see the photo, you'll see why!); the slightly less awful one was, I guess, put in to replace it. Without further ado, here they are:
This one is merely bad, I think – but it's very bad indeed! The idea is that you put one of your bike's wheels into the bracket, and this will keep the bike securely upright. Given that the top of the stand is no more than eighteen inches off the ground, I don't think that's too likely to happen! If anyone walking past should brush against the other wheel (or even if there's a strong gust of wind) your bike is likely to be knocked over. Not the worst that could happen, admittedly – but what if you've really jammed your wheel into the bracket? Most likely result is a buckled wheel. So, no marks for stability then – how about security? Well, you can put a lock through this stand – but there's no easy way to get it through the stand and your bike frame, which is what you ideally want. Low marks on that score then.
But, if that one's bad, this one really is ugly:
No, your eyes aren't deceiving you! What we have here is a set of concrete blocks, each with an angled slot in it. The idea being that you drop your front wheel into the slot, and the bike then stands nicely upright, its front wheel held at an angle to the frame. Yeah right! As clear a recipe for a bent wheel as I can imagine. Thankfully, you don't see many of these any more – and these ones clearly haven't been used for a long time, as the slots are filled with earth and other detritus. There was a time when you'd see these everywhere – maybe there was a factory dedicated to the production of molded concrete blocks somewhere or other! In summary: hopeless for stability, no security (not even a ring in the concrete to take a lock) and a great way to end up with a buckled front wheel.
It's possible, of course, that I'm being a bit harsh here; after all, the concrete blocks are obviously something from the past, when steel-rimmed wheels with fat tires would sit securely in the slots, and bikes never got stolen. But then I look back at the first picture, which is a relatively recent replacement, and I wonder who on earth thought it was a good design. I've been past that library a few times lately, and I've seen bikes leaning against the building itself, or chained to nearby lampposts – but I've never seen a bike secured to that stand. I think that says it all…
© David Fowler 2011
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