Cadbury's bicycle factory, not a scam.

Back in September my cage was rattled when someone spammed my comments section with something about the bicycle factory and I ranted about it in a post.

I'm happy to report that I received a personnal Email from a real human being who represents Cadbury's venture to help out people to get bikes in Africa. It's legit, it helps people and they were profusely sorry that the blog ended up being spammed that way. Seems they found out about it by accident and they had no idea that this type of tactic was being used.

I have a lot of respect when people own up to their mistakes and they did. So feel free to visit the site and help out if you can. Here's a brief explanation that was sent to me today from Sara Beckford :

"In a nutshell: Canadians can visit www.thebicyclefactory.ca and enter the UPC from any Cadbury goodie includingCaramilk, Dairy Milk¸ Maynards, Dentyne, Stride, Trident and Halls and watch it magically transform into a virtual bicycle part that will help build a new bicycle for a child in Africa.  Each UPC code is equal to one bicycle part, and 100 UPC codes equal a bicycle. With your help, Cadbury will send 5,000 bicycles to Ghana, Africa.  The factory closes on November 14, 2010.

This is the second year for the program.  In 2009 Cadbury delivered 5,000 to Ghana."

Here's a video about the program as well

Until next time, ride safe and Godspeed.

Gerry :)

STORING YOUR BIKE FOR THE WINTER

I've already published a post about bike storage previously and I invite you to read it here: WINTER BIKE STORAGE.

But over the week end it was time for me to store away my big cargo bike "Jenna Saykwa" and the shear size of it prohibits storage indoors. Off to the shed she must go for the winter months. The humid plywood shed that is.

Since I can't store the entire bike inside the warmth of my family dwelling, I elected to remove some parts that would stay warm inside for those cold weather months.

I used to ride junk bikes made from junk parts, but this one has a nice Brooks leather saddle and an expensive set of cream Schwalbe Fat franks that cost me over $100 for the set. I don't know why, maybe some of you more enlightened about the subject can comment on this, but tires left outside in the cold too long seem to become biodegradable and just rot away.

So I think I made a smart move by getting these parts indoors. I know for a fact that the leather saddle should be treated as if it was a living thing, after all it is made from real cows and it doesn't fair too well when exposed for too long to humid conditions. As far as tires go, I've seen my fair share of rotten ones and I feel that bringing those inside would at the very least not be harmful.

One last thing, I turned the handlebars and removed the pedals so I could make it melt into the wall. Space is at a premium in my shed! I played it smart and left the pedals in the saddle bag. That is the best way to avoid going around like a mad man trying to find them 5 months from now on the first nice sunny day begging to be ridden. It's also a good time to oil your chain and look over the bike for potential problems for next spring.

I know that I have a full bottom bracket rebuild waiting for me next April, nice.

Until next time, ride safe and Godspeed.

Gerry :)