My bike's rear deraileur disconnected in The Gardens

[DulwichMonkey]

Hi again!

Thanks for all the advice and commiserations after my last post and sorry I couldn't make the neighbourhood meeting on the 1st of June. We got a visit from two nice Community officers offering advice and I have seen some Bike Police cruising round The Gardens so that's promising.

Unfortunately I think The Gardens is still being targetted. I jumped on my bike last Monday to find that someone had disconnected the rear deraileur. They were probably trying to steal it but lost interest or were disturbed. Anyway I had to book in to Balfes Bikes who were busy until Friday so lost a week of cycling. Balfes were very good and despite being busy fixed it in two tics and for nothing - support this shop if you are a cyclist says I as they have been brilliant in the past too. I have now parked the bike the other way to make it harder to get to the deraileur. By the way the guy at Balfes said he had a Gardens person in recently who had their bike completely stripped down - for a laugh by kids he thinks - so it does happen.

I did notice that a car near my bike had a side window broken and have also noticed two slightly suspicious customers 'staking out' the area, one in a bright orange hoodie, the other doing a few rounds on a bicycle. Who knows, maybe they just like the area.

Anyway just to let people know.

By the way does anyone know who owns the rather nice Lemond road bike parked against the railings. It's been there a few days with a rather weedy lock, with quick release wheels, a pump, Tiagra gears and a cycle computer just ripe for the knicking. If anyone owns it I would recommend keeping it inside or it won't last long. Just a suggestion.

Must dash as I'm off to check on my bike.

Ben

[lenk]

I've mentioned it on here before, but supergluing a ball bearing into all allen key sockets and using locking skewers on wheels makes it a fairly boring task for thieves to nick anything.

Certainly the most common type who only wander around with allen keys.

[DulwichMonkey]

You're probably right Lenk and I do have locking skewers on my wheels but I didn't want to mess with my derailleur as it could affect the gear change or damage it in some way. Turning the bike so that the gears face towards the railings makes it harder for them to fiddle with exposed bits...at least so far.

[Asset]

doesn't supergluing ball bearings into the allen key sockets then mean you can't open them either?

[lenk]

when you want to remove them (for a rare event like replacing saddle etc) you use superglue remover and wait 15 mins.

Your average thief doesn't usually have that amount of time handy / carry superglue remover.

[HAL9000]

DulwichMonkey Wrote:

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> I didn't want to mess with my derailleur

Shouldn't proper cyclists, at the least, be able to re-thread their derailleur on the road? It's a bit like stripping and assembling ones weapon in the field - an essential skill.

[????]

is this a euphinism?

[HAL9000]

Could be. Some folks said they superglue their balls to the bike - stops their nuts from falling off - or something like that.

[DulwichMonkey]

I did manage to reattach the derailleur and get the bike going, simply by screwing it back on, but the gears weren't firing properly so I thought the person who had unscrewed it in the first place might have damaged it. Thieves tend not to have a lot of respect for other peoples property dontcha know. I took it to Balfes so that the experts could have a look and it turns out that it just needed a slight readjustment, done in two tics, and that put my mind at rest.

Got to dash as I've lost the firing pin for my AK47, now I know I put it down somewhere...