Bikes, Bikes and More Bikes

I don’t know about you, but when I first heard about the lockdown situation, I thought about the freedom; no one around and empty roads for kilometres on end. On top of this, the fact that online school was generally more laid back meant I could spend more time riding my bike. Let’s just say I was kind of looking forward to it.

The very first thing I did was go to Ceres bike shed, which is a short walk away from the school. On Saturdays and Sundays volunteers roam around there, so you can take your bike in to get it fixed, get advice about bike mechanics or build a bike entirely from scratch. It’s like an unofficial second-hand bike shop, but you do all the work. The volunteers there are friendly and you are greeted by literally piles of old bike parts, which gives you plenty of room for making mistakes whilst fixing or building your bike - something that will save a lot of money and is very handy if you are a beginner.

The reason I went there was to get a bunch of bike frames, as with all this time on my hands I was planning on putting parts on them and turning them into rideable bikes. I still remember riding home on my bike after school with three frames draped across my shoulders in the rain. The weather signified the times ahead.

There is this myth that building a bike is some sort of sorcery, but this definitely isn’t the case. All it takes is a little problem solving and persistence, and if you have the Ceres bike shed on your side then it can be a complete piece of cake. Something that makes things easier for me is that I mostly build “fixed gear bikes”. The thing about these bikes is that they can’t coast, so if the back wheel is moving, the pedals are moving. This means that in most situations you only need one brake; to stop you can very easily just put the brakes on and stop pedalling as hard. Another thing that makes building these bikes easy is that they don’t have any gears, so you don’t need to worry about all the cables, shifters, derailleurs, etc. This is fantastic, as these components normally take up the majority of time when you build a bike, which makes fixing and building fixed gear bikes very easy.

Here is a picture of a geared bike. As you can see, the chain can go onto all those different sized cogs on the back wheel, which will change the “gear” of your bike. (This will make it easier or harder to pedal – higher gear for higher speeds and vice versa)

Here is a fixed gear bike. This one is different as it only has one cog on the back wheel. This cog is “fixed” onto the back wheel, meaning the pedals are always moving if the back wheel is moving.

After mucking around with those frames, putting all the parts on them and building them all up, I went out to ride them. Riding during this time was amazing, as the roads were almost completely deserted, especially in the city. Also the fact that I didn’t have anything to get back to and wasn’t allowed to see anyone meant that I had the freedom of mind to be out on the bike for the majority of the day, something that wouldn’t have been possible in regular times.

Recently hard rubbish was chucked onto front lawns all throughout Melbourne, which included all the bikes that have been hanging around unwanted in people’s houses. So naturally I went out around my area to see what I could pick up and was quite successful. Many bikes in our household were built in this time, and the quality of bikes was better than those coming from Ceres, as many people got rid of great quality bikes that simply hadn’t been used in a while.

I don’t want to speak too soon, but it looks like things are now calming down a bit and restrictions are gradually easing. You never know however as 2020 has been a crazy year; there could be another situation where you have as much time on your hands as you will ever get…if you like finding out about how things work, being independent or are just looking for a new hobby, I highly suggest you have a look at the bike in your home (assuming you have one) and play around a little – get to know what’s going on, and then go out and ride it! If you know of a bike path in your area (there are tonnes around the school) it’s always cool to follow it to see how far it goes. If you get lost, even better (just make sure you can access google maps)!