⏱️ The 10 Second Bike Check That Could Save Your Life
ABCD 🎶 easy as 123 🎶
The ABCD Check
This simple check is a safety check done just before you ride, every time you ride. It takes less than 10 seconds and it could save your life! Make it a habit and you won't even realise you're doing it at all.
A is for Air
A stands for air, and all you have to do is squeeze your front tyre and your back tyre to check if you have air in them. If you do, great! You're ready to ride. If you don't, poop - you've got a puncture 💩
B is for Brakes
B stands for brakes, and all you have to do is squeeze your levers. Is there engagement? (Do the pads make contact with the braking surface?) Great! You're ready to ride. Does it feel like you're grabbing air and the levers hit the handlebar? Oh dear, time to check if your brakes are still connected.
There's a new hot theft in town (I wrote all about it here) where people will steal your handlebars.
To do this they will cut the cables coming out from your brake levers, undo your stem (the part that attaches your handlebars to the rest of your bike), and yoink your cockpit away. Those brake levers / shifters are often quite expensive. (They know what they're stealing!) But if someone got scared off after they cut your cables, you will be left with a bike that might look like it's in working condition. If you start cycling and then grab the brakes and there's nothing there, you're in trouble. Squeeze your levers to make sure you're gonna be safe.
C is for Chain
C stands for Chain, and this is just a visual check. Is your chain still on the chainring/cassette? Hooray, you can proceed to the next check. Did it come off somehow? Push the derailleur towards the front of the bike to slacken off the chain - this will make it easy to put the chain back on.
Who knows how this happens, but it did happen to me once: I was in Roll for the Soul, Bristol's sadly now closed cycling cafe, when I witnessed someone knocking over my bike. They were a kind soul and picked my bike back up, but when I got to my bike later on, I noticed the chain had come off. To make matters worse, the fall also bent my derailleur and my chainring somehow. C'est la vie I guess.
TOP TIP: The trick here is that when parking up somewhere, shift your rear derailleur into the lowest gear (largest sprocket), so that the derailleur doesn't stick out and is less likely to get bent should someone hit it or your bike falls over.
D is for Direction
D stands for Direction. This is a new one, added thanks to the aforementioned cockpit theft.
Remember when I mentioned that thieves like to loosen the bolts on your stem? Well once those bolts are loose, your handlebars are no longer connected to the steering column on your fork. Which means if you go off to ride and then decide to turn, your bars are going to go in one direction and you are going to go the other. That is a recipe for coming off your bike. Ouch.
So to check for this you just stick your front wheel between your legs, squeeze them like a Suzanne Somers’ Thigh Master, and then wiggle the handlebars side to side. Just a quick wiggle will do - if the stem bolts are loose the bars will turn the opposite way from the wheel instead of staying in line with the rest of the bike. Bullet dodged!
And there you have it, the 10 second bike check that could save your life. Do this every time you ride, and soon enough you won't even realise that you're doing it. Habits are great in that way.
NEW CLASS DATES ADDED
Calum Rogers (they/them) has joined me as an instructor, and they are going to be experimenting with Monday daytime classes for our most popular Intro to Maintenance course. Monday classes are only £75/ea.
Calum is a fantastic teacher with extensive experience in cargo bike maintenance, and will soon be teaching a tubeless maintenance test class.
Note the change in time!
Saturday 9 November 11am - 230pm
Monday 18 November 11am - 230pm
Monday 2 December 11am - 230pm
Sunday 8 December 11am - 230pm
Saturday 14 December 11am - 230pm
A fellow cyclist and mechanic is part of the Filton 10 and needs our help
Charlotte's conscience brought her to the Elbit death factory in Bristol, and she courageously poked a hole in the manufacturing process of drones - drones that mimic the sound of children screaming so as to draw civilians out to then kill them. The Filton 10 did not kill anyone, and countless lives have been saved around the world thanks to this action. Yet she and 9 others are now being held in prison without bail. The trial is now set for November 2025, which means they will remain in prison until then! Some property has been damaged, but human life has been saved - what is more important here? They are political prisoners who are highlighting the duplicity and complicity of the UK government in genocide.
The government is trying to scare the public, and we need to show that we are not scared, and that we are watching them.
Please sign this Change petition directly about this issue.
You can read more about the Filton 10 in the Dazed article here.
Public pressure has removed Madeline Norman from the escape list. Your voice has power.
Good Law Project also have a letter to sign about the current government's Advisor on Protest, Lord Walney. His views are not objective and he should not be in this position.
"Lord Walney was appointed by Boris Johnson to advise the government on political violence and disruption and still holds his post today, making recommendations on protest law. His 2024 report, Protecting Democracy from Coercion, urged the government to focus their attention on what he calls the ‘extreme left’ – predominantly those campaigning on the climate crisis and protesting for Palestine.
But whilst making these recommendations, Walney was being paid by lobbying organisations whose clients include oil and gas companies and those selling weapons to Israel.
His conflicts of interest have been raised multiple times by journalists, but so far no formal complaint has been made to parliament. Until now."
https://goodlawproject.org/petition/remove-the-governments-protest-adviser/
That’s all for now friends, I hope that you have somewhere warm and safe to be now that the nights are drawing in.
If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover in a future newsletter, just hit reply!
Ride on,
Jenni x