Let's Talk Bicycle Security

Wherever you park your bicycle, you want to know that it’ll be there when you get back. Bike thefts are on the up locally and nationally, partly caused by the increase in sales and reduction in supply during the pandemic. Bikes of all types are being stolen, to sell on or to break up for parts.

It’s an unfortunate fact of owning a bike that one day it might get stolen, and based on the statistics, it might seem hard to know what you can actually do about it. But there are ways you can make your bike less attractive to a thief when you leave it parked.

First, think about the type of lock you use. There are so many locks on the market and getting one that is appropriate can feel like wading through treacle, so here are a few tips on what to look for:

• Sold Secure logo - independent testing allows you to compare different locks.

• Cable locks should only ever be used as secondary locks, as they are so easy to cut.

• Chain locks can be good for odd shaped bikes, and allow locking to wide objects, but Sold Secure-rated chain locks tend to be very heavy due to the size of the links.

• D-Locks are by far the best solution as a primary lock, and the smaller the better to prevent access for car jacks and crowbars, which are regularly used to lever them off.

• Protect your wheels with locking skewers, just remember to have a skewer key with you if you get a puncture.

Next, consider where you park your bike. Don’t hide it away, thieves love dark corners where pedestrians fear to tread, so they can quietly work on your lock for hours if necessary. Make your bike visible, and lock it to an immovable object, a Sheffield Stand is best, but never lock to a bollard. If you are near to one of our high security cycle hubs, use that but remember to lock your bike up in there too.

Other things to consider are using removable pedals, which are easy to take off and replace, pop them in your bag when you leave your bike: if it can’t be ridden away it’s unlikely to be taken.

Make sure you have photos of your bike and note down any frame numbers. Using Bike Register can also help with recovery if the worst happens, and will also make the bike less saleable on the secondhand market.

If you use your bicycle regularly you’ll understand how important it is, and regardless of how much your bike cost you, its value to you will far outweigh the price of replacing it.

Oxford Shackle 14 Pro 260

£47.00

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How We Can Help You With Bicycle Parking

It’s always the same, there is never enough cycle parking but always enough car parking. If just one car parking space was given over to cycle parking, even using traditional Sheffield Stands there would be enough parking for at least eight bicycles.

How can we help? Well, we have been in the cycle parking business for a decade now: at first we managed the Cycle Hub at Sheffield Station on behalf of East Midlands Trains, and since then we have tried to expand our offer. We’ve provided bicycle racks for cafes and other businesses to promote cycling to their establishments, and these can still be seen around the city at Peddler Market in Neepsend, Copper Pot Cafe on Division Street, Motore Cafe in Bingham Park and South Street Kitchen at Park Hill. We want to hear from more retailers, cafes and other businesses take us up on this offer, and see how many people we can get cycling for their daily dose. Our racks are lightweight and easy to store, and having them close to where people are seated makes their bicycles more secure.

Since then we’ve helped other businesses to include cycle parking in their offer to customers. We’re working with Northern Railways, Sheffield City Council and others to provide good quality high security provision, but we’ve not, and never will, give up on trying to get more ad hoc simple cycle parking installed across the city too. We want businesses to realise the potential of providing cycle parking by offering temporary stands, which can inform the need for provision, not just in the public realm, but in private locations too.

We want to offer businesses free use of our racks for three months over this summer to allow them to assess the need and best location for bicycle parking provision.

If you know a business that doesn’t have sufficient (or even any) cycle parking provision then get them to contact us, or if you’re from a business looking to provide cycle parking and don’t really know where to start, then please get in touch.

Contact us at neepsend@russellsbicycleshed.co.uk

Goodbye Sheffield Station... Hello City Centre

One cold wet Thursday morning in October 2012 I set up my bike stand and tool box to offer bike repairs and maintenance to the cycling commuters at Sheffield Station in the space that would become the Cycld Hub. After nearly 2 years operating every Thursday, even in temperatures of -6 degrees, and only a few weeks following the Tour De France’s first and only visit to Sheffield, Russell's Bicycle Shed opened to the public offering 5 day a week service at the Station. It’s been nearly 12 years and how the world has changed in that time. We’ve finally closed our doors at Sheffield Station due to the massive change in working patterns caused by the Pandemic and subsequent collapse of the railway network, but those 12 years of operating from the Station has meant we’ve had some amazing experiences, met some wonderful people and made new friends. But times have changed and our business needs to change with them, we’ve had an opportunity afforded to us and we are taking it up by moving our operations to the new City Centre Cycle Hub.

The City Centre Cycle Hub is located in what used to be Telephone House and is now occupied by Vita Student in Charter Square behind the vacant Debenhams building. We're not that easy to spot from the road as our shop front will be obscured by the Furnace Restaurant but we will be doing everything we can to point you in the right direction, a big sign is already on the side of the building. Our workshop will be opening soon once we have the keys and the electricity is switched on, and then we'll be opening the attached high security cycle parking that will join Meadowhall as part of our growing network of high security cycle parking. Our location is going to be in the heart of the new developments in the city and hopefully will encourage more people to ditch the car and cycle to the city.

We'll still be offering our usual workshop and retail services, providing the essentials and we'll also have bike hire available. It’s going to be great and we hope you can help us make it a success.

Our Neepsend Shop will still be open during this period offering repairs and maintenance, secondhand bike sales and bike hire so if you need assistance, are looking for a tune up or just want advice we're here to help.

Customer Support

A simple message from us after all the recent reports about the collapse of the cycling industry. Covid, Br*x*t, the rise and fall of national and local government pro cycling policies, and many other factors mean everyone in the bike industry is struggling just now. We and other local bike shops were key workers and essential services during the lockdown years, fixing bikes every day for other essential workers like doctors and nurses and cleaners and teachers. But those years have now taken their toll on all of us.

We’ve made some changes at the station shop, and we’re now open again there on Mondays and Fridays, and at Neepsend from Wednesday to Sunday. And now the weather is worsening, we’re offering a quick tune up and check service at both our service centres for £20.00.

We give your bike a full safety check, tweak the brakes and gears so they work properly, and pump up the tyres. And if there’s anything seriously wrong, we’ll tell you. Keep your eye on the Better Points App too, as there’ll be a discount for anyone collecting points for making more trips without a car - please tell any friends or colleagues who are just starting cycling, as one of the main issues we see from enthusiastic new cyclists is that their bike is not set up properly, and often not safely either.

Most of us can see that cycling is the future of modern urban travel, but issues outside our control are currently conspiring against us. Cyclists commuting to and from the station have dropped massively, while security at the station means fewer bikes are being left at the hub, while others (and their locks) are abandoned by people who no longer cycle there.

The global industry is slow and bottom-line driven, whereas we are driven very simply by a desire to get (and keep) more people from all over Sheffield cycling.

We offer you support on that aim every day of the week, but at present we need your support back. Local businesses of all kinds need regular local customers to survive and be there for the future, there’s probably just one person behind it all trying to earn a crust.

So just now, that’s what we mean by customer support. Thanks to all of you who are joining us on our mission.

Fobbing Us Off

This story is originally from our monthly newsletter. If you want to keep up-to-date with what is happening at Russell’s Bicycle Shed sign up using the form on this page.

Our surveys over the last year show us in 1st place among city centre businesses for the word ‘fob’ appearing in customer conversations. We’ve had enough of the word, and luckily East Midlands Railways are now dealing with enquiries about the outdated, unsafe and insecure model of cycle parking at their customer service desk at Sheffield station. But do come in and talk to us about bikes instead, we’d be delighted.

So, why are fobs so out of date when it comes to any kind of public bicycle parking? After many years of talking to the police and large companies and local governments about what works, what’s safe, and what’s secure for contemporary cyclists, we have a pretty good idea of what needs consigning to the past.

Old fob, old bike, old technology

The modern cycling world includes a fast growing number of e-bikes for families, businesses and individuals worth several thousand pounds, all targeted by thieves, and all very useful for a hilly city. Once the market and the government get to grips with the popularity of e-bikes, they’ll also become much more affordable, and before very long, e-bikes will be the norm, and motorless bikes will be the exotic outliers.

Today’s world also includes a wider variety of people cycling, with many more families and people with disabilities making journeys on expensive cycles. Not catering for these people is foolish, and frankly, discriminatory.

E-trike on Ecclesall Road

So, what is a fob? It’s very much like the medieval technology of a metal key. It allows the person with that fob / key in their hand to access something, like a large parking space with dozens of e-bikes costing several thousands pounds. Like a metal key, a fob can be handed to someone else, or lost at the pub. And we’ve seen online noticeboards where fobs are freely exchanged and handed to someone else, so no-one knows who’s using it.

So a cycle hub accessed by a key, or a fob, will have unknown people entering at any time. Such a cycle hub is nether secure nor safe, for any of those users mentioned above. One of the important arguments against low security cycle parking is that people feel nervous about parking there, not just for their bike, but for their own personal safety too.

A modern, forward-looking high security cycle parking hub will have controlled access, so the hub manager and other users know that people using it are registered to do so. We do this via a phone app connected to your phone (and your phone only) and paid for via a bank mandate, and with working CCTV and secure doors. If you use our hubs, anyone else in there will be known to the system, to us, and can be monitored on CCTV.

So think about those 4,000 + fobs still circulating for the nine year old Sheffield station cycle hub, bought for £10 to use for evermore, or handed on to someone else when you move away. That £10 for life barely covers the cost of the fob and its first registration, it certainly doesn’t pay for hub upkeep, CCTV monitoring, removing abandoned bikes or fixing broken ‘security’ doors.

Old CycleBoost bike left, possibly abandoned, in the station hub

The last time the door at the station broke down, we asked and asked for it to be repaired by EMR, but while we and Sheffield waited, bikes were stolen, and unregistered people used the hub for all kinds of things. We reckon around 50 bikes have been stolen from the Sheffield station hub during periods when the doors have not been working properly.

Just last week, the door at our new Meadowhall Hub was vandalised, and because we manage the place, we sorted out the locking and security problem within a couple of days. No miscreants got in, and no bikes were stolen.

We’ve been asking EMR to let us take over full management of the station hub for many years, a solution many of their staff are keen to see as soon as possible. But the decision has not yet been made.

If you’d like a high security cycle parking facility at Sheffield station, where you and your bike are secure and you feel safe, you might like to let the current managers know your thoughts.

Delivery By Christmas? We Can Ride To Your Help!

Russell’s Bicycle Shed deliveries is offering help for fellow Sheffield business people struggling to get their Christmas deliveries out to the city.

Russell making a Christmas delivery

Delivery rider and business-owner Russell Cutts said: “It’s a hard enough time for local businesses just now, so as a Sheffield delivery company, we want to help this Christmas. With the disruption in the mail service this year, if businesses contact us soon we’ll do everything we can to get their Sheffield deliveries where they need to be by Christmas.”

Russell and team have been building their business over the last year, with clients including the NHS, Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, Sheffield Council, Citizens Advice Sheffield and Zed’s Wholefoods. Now they’re asking any local business with urgent deliveries to make to get in touch at: https://www.russellsbicycleshed.co.uk/deliveries .

Russell has even re-christened the e-cargo bike feels for the season. He said: “ Comet is the speedy urban cruiser, Dasher is the handsome blue carry-all and Blitzen is the big box on wheels that can carry up to 600 litres or 130 kg.”

He said for local Sheffield deliveries. the team will guarantee arrival by Christmas, but do get in touch soon.