Any cyclists?

[Eoin]

I bought an electric bike @ this time last year on the bike to work scheme - (I know it was this time last year as I had been looking into them for ages and figured the scheme would be dropped in the last budget )

Thing was the bees knees, put a kids seat on the cross bar brought the little dude to School on the way to work, everything was hunky dory until some Kn$%^ers came over the wall @ a month or two ago and liberated it from the Shed   ( yeah I had spent @ a year saying I better buy a padlock for the shed...)
Anyway - the muppets never spotted the charger in the Shed and its the kinda bike (a wisper brand)  that uses a specific charger - can only buy them from registered dealers, between the jigs and the reels of it I got half of it back @ 2 weeks later, B$%trds  stuck it up on a fence in the local shopping area in the middle of the day.
( I had launched a campaign of posters and contacted  community members & what not to get it back ) - these guys were taklng down the posters & I was putting them back up, so they eventually gave up the ghost 

They used an angle grinder to rub off all the branding in a poor  attempt to disguise the bike, and chopped of the carrier & saddle bags  with it too  - went into the tire with the grinder I reckon coz all that was left was the back rim, they even chopped off the bloody pedals on me.
not exactly criminal masterminds - I think they  only thought as far as selling it within the imediate local area and when they realised they couldn't they mangled it on me.
funny thing is they left all the parts of the bike that make it electric  pretty much intact, the battery the motor ect, if they had any sense they could have stripped all this and put it on another bike
Anyway - needless to say  _ now have a padlock on the Shed

Shed was full of my brewing equipment too, power tools and loads of stuff - I'd call them fools but I guess I was the bigger fool for not padlocking it in the first place.
After Crimbo has passed I guess I'll buy a cheap bike and strip it for parts and try to repair it,





   

Swines, you'd think they'd have left it when they realised it was useless to them. You can only hope they get their come-uppance some day.

Bikes are a target for thieves, I lost three of them while living in the city centre, and each time I'd buy a cheap replacement knowing that it was going to be stolen very shortly. Buying replacements from a bike hire company in Marino, they were selling off their ex-rental stock cheap and the bikes were pretty much bomb proof.

My present bike could not be locked up in town, it'd never last.

[newToBrew]

yeah - don't think they fully understood what they had gotten their hands on really, now that I am whingin @ it

Because of how the grinded off the branding form various parts of teh frame - one of the thingsa I am consiidering is a re- spray - (DIY of course !)

I'm guessing the following step are whats needed,
1.  remove current paint work 
2. Paint with some kinda primer
3. Paint it with the actual paint

Any One any experience with this ?
what would be the best (& cheapest ) way to remove the current paint job ?

[Spud395]

You'd be supprised how much work is involved in doing a proper job. Some times it works out better/cheaper to get a pro to do the job.
A few of the lads I ride with got proper re-sprays.

There's a local place where they will remove paint and powder coat a bike frame for 80 quid I think, a really super/durable tough coat, or you could always go for the rat bike rattle can look 

[newToBrew]

thats not a bad price alright - i'll need to do something with it feckers tore into the frame so if I don't it'll end up rusting - wont be doin anything this side of christmas anyway - but might as well start on the research

[Spud395]

Yeah and the work is good too.

Powder coat is the job, it's tough as hell