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   David Hembrow (hembrow@todon.eu)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 20:56:02 JST David Hembrow

   in reply to

   The frame is made of steel with really nice lugs and good quality brazing and very good paint. There is no rust anywhere. The mudguards are probably stainless steel. Again, there's no rust. Other parts are aluminium, and of course there's a bit of plastic and rubber.

   I can still buy all the inexpensive parts I need to repair this bike, but I can't get the parts required to repair some modern bikes. Electric bicycles in particular become completely unmaintainable after a few years so I usually can't help people with those. But if you have one of these lovely old bikes and you take a bit of care of it, it'll last your whole life.

   This is the level of reliability we should demand from manufacturers of everything that we buy.

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     David Hembrow (hembrow@todon.eu)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 20:56:03 JST David Hembrow

     This is the peak of bicycle technology.

     It's a bike which a local customer brought around yesterday because it's been a few years and she thought it was about time that someone had a look at it.

     I know it looks terribly old fashioned, but hear me out:

     This is a reasonably light-weight, efficient bike, with effective gearing and brakes. Nothing on it is unmaintainable.

     This bike came out of the factory in 1982 (May 1982 according to the stamp on the rear hub). It has admittedly had a fairly good life, always having been kept indoors, but it's been ridden a lot yet needed almost no work.

     The front rack had a broken non-essential part which I removed. The rubber strap / snelbinder over the rear carrier rack was broken so I replaced it, and the skirtguards were perished and falling apart so I replaced those as well. Otherwise, I've just checked that things were working and added a bit of oil. One of the pedals was running roughly until I oiled it.

     Bike shops don't sell bicycles like this any more. Modern bicycles are not designed to last a whole lifetime, like these were.

     https://www.dutchbikebits.com
     #bicycle #BikeTooter #cycling #repairability #righttorepair #netherlands #ProperBicycle #NotAnEBike #dutchbikebits

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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