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In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

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Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one locks their bikes in Japan, either. According to Wikipedia this is thanks to "strong policing and general public disregard for stolen items." I can certainly say I've never heard of a US police department doing anything proactive in response to a reported bike theft.

in japan bikes are stolen once in a while by drunk salarymen who dont want to wamk to go back home. so not 100% safe but fairly safe. also all bikes have a registration number so you eventually find them.

At what size is an island small enough, such that a drunk man riding a bike home is merely seen as borrowing it, and is not a thief?

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#142
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you absolutely need security - London especially anything not held down will be stolen quickly. Battery powered jigsaws to go through locks and chains, bikes stripped of components, etc. Its a whole different world from the safety of NL Granted some of this is because of a culture of more expensive bikes but still if you used a beater bike it wouldnt be safe either

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I'm guessing this isn't near a college campus. The one time I made the mistake of not securing my bike it grew legs and walked off after 20 minutes

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all you need is a pipe bender, right?

For the simplest case yes, a way of bending big pipe and some way to make two big holes in the ground to then cement the thing in. (Or similar) But it quickly gets complicated - making smaller holes in concrete type surfaces is easier, less intrusive, less permanent than making bigger holes, which can lead to the flange method, but then you need some way to make or buy flanges, and then stick them onto the pipe. I ma…

>>> With a grinder and some elbow grease you can make it look like it was never welded.

Like my 1963 Schwinn!

As an alternative, how about threaded pipe and elbows?

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#144

In general, the author is right, and the simple design is by far the best. But the classic Sheffield stand with a circular cross section can be easily cut with a pipe cutter. Contrary to an angle grinder, a pipe cutter doesn't make any noise. Thus, the design has been improved by making it solid instead of hollow and giving it a rectangular cross section, like [1]. I used to hate the improved design because it's obvi…

Is the risk of someone using a pipe cutter really that high? Seems like if someone is that dedicated they are getting your bike anyway.

Def not in Japan, bike theft is pretty rare altogether. Just wish they'd stop using the front wheel bender racks, but everyone seems fine with them unfortunately.

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#145
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you absolutely need security - London especially anything not held down will be stolen quickly. Battery powered jigsaws to go through locks and chains, bikes stripped of components, etc. Its a whole different world from the safety of NL Granted some of this is because of a culture of more expensive bikes but still if you used a beater bike it wouldnt be safe either

Honestly, that was my initial impression seeing this tweet storm. Living first in the Netherlands and then Japan, it seems like being so fussy about bike stands is wholly unnecessary.

Agreed as a Japan resident but having been a SF resident even crappy bikes would be stolen in seconds for sure. So it depends on the place you live in.

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to to do some paperwork for buying a bike. I assume you have to transfer ownership when selling, so stolen bikes probably cannot really be sold on the open market.

Out of sheer ignorance: what are the implications of not having the proper paperwork? Do Japan's street policemen take note of suspicious looking bikes and follow up with their owners?

The police stop bicycles and ask who it's registered to. They can look up the registered owner from the registration sticker. If you stole the bike then you don't know the name of who it's registered to. In general there's no requirement to carry ID (apart from for foreign nationals) so police can't rely on cross checking against the ID people are carrying. Also, bicycles might be registered to a friend or a family member, so knowing the registered name and providing an explanation should be enough.

If you have no idea about who the bicycle is registered to then the police will likely make further investigations.

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#147

In my car-centric city (southeast USA, population ~125k) when I visit private property with no bicycle parking, I try to find the owner and offer to install one of these just for the cost of materials. The idea being, they can put in another one when they see more than one customer on a bicycle at the same time. It's very cheap, less than 100 bucks typically as I have the requisite tools in my garage to make them fro…

This is really cool. I’m sure this helps you develop a relationship with the business owners, too, which I would think helps foster more of a sense of community for everyone. Very neat.

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's on the owner's property, it's probably kosher. Many cities have rules about the proximity of bike racks/stands to fire hydrants, parking meters, etc., but those generally concern public sidewalks. I say probably because, knowing this country, I am positive someone can find a municipality that bans storeowners from putting bike stands on their property.

One example from Twitter thread: Might need a tapping bar for accessibility to blind people.

Blind people that need to attach their bikes to a rack?

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's on the owner's property, it's probably kosher. Many cities have rules about the proximity of bike racks/stands to fire hydrants, parking meters, etc., but those generally concern public sidewalks. I say probably because, knowing this country, I am positive someone can find a municipality that bans storeowners from putting bike stands on their property.

One example from Twitter thread: Might need a tapping bar for accessibility to blind people.

So much for search engine NLP. I couldn't find anything other than pages with Sheffield stands for sale using the term "tapping bar". Had to read the tweet[1] to get the term "tapping rail", which successfully turns up civil engineering documents.

Maybe creating a Wikidata item with both terms as labels would give search engines a better idea.

[1] https://twitter.com/LikeEngineer/status/1493321090470486023

Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example from Twitter thread: Might need a tapping bar for accessibility to blind people.

Blind people that need to attach their bikes to a rack?

Presumably blind people that don't want to bruise their shins walking into one
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