Give a Car is a scrap car charity organisation that donates its proceeds to charities around the world. Ditch the old banger in favour of a more ethical mode of transport… such as biking.

Have you recently gone out and bought yourself a new bike and have your old monstrosity cluttering the hallway? Or perhaps you have loads of spare bike parts that you don’t know what to do with? Here are some creative ideas..

1) A new form of transport

Simply, logical and, yes, awesomely cool, creating a new mode of transport from your bikes parts is a great way to start. So your friends might say it’s a bit weird, but you know they’re just jealous of your ingenuity and intimidating powers of creation.

Here’s a great example of something practical:

Image by barb.howe

Something cool:

Image by pagedesign

And something, which, err, doesn’t fit comfortably within either of those categories:

Image by charkesw

2) A chic door or gate

Another way to make the most of you old bike is to spruce up your dwelling with a funky new door or gate. This is a great method to let anyone entering your house know that you’re bike crazy and gives them enough time to prepare themselves accordingly.

Here are a couple of inspired examples:

Image by thekirbster

Image by tibchris

3) Jewellery

Once you’ve constructed your new vehicle, door, or gate, creating some jewellery is a fantastic way to use up all the small and fiddly parts. If your mad skills are not just confined to the cycle path you may even find yourself with a profitable new enterprise.

Image by E. Bartholomew

4) A work of modern art

For those of you with an artistic temperament this enables you to show off of your twin passions for aesthetic beauty and cycling. The sky’s the limit with this one and the possibilities endless.

Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing:

Image by Rob Young

Image by ednl

5) A dinosaur

Why? I hear you ask. Well, because everybody loves a dinosaur. Old or young, these prehistoric behemoths appeal to everyone’s sense of fascination. Even if you have been roundly mocked for your bike-cum-submarine, your impractical front door, your dangerous-looking earrings and your work of ‘modern’ art, you are bound to receive high praise for a towering T-Rex.

Now this is what I’m talking about:

Image by exfordy

Cycle Hire Bike 14964 will always have a vivid place in my haunting memories.

Yet, when I first approached it, it didn’t look so sinister. If anything Cycle Hire Bike 14964 looked kind of friendly and welcoming. Like an old friend. It wanted me to sit down. It wanted to show me the places I can see. The people I can meet. The fallen leaves I can gently trample on beneath its comfortingly large wheels.

Confidently I held out my London Cycle Hire Key as I approached the bike. I knew what needed to be done. I’d seen hundreds of fellow Londoners do it with ease. As I slid in my key the light predictably turned from red, to orange and finally the all-clear green.

I pulled the bike. It didn’t move. I pulled it again. That’s strange? This time I put more force into it, hands firmly on the handlebars and pulled with all my strength. Still no movement. Confused I stepped back. Was I missing something? Was there some kind of a vital step in this oh so simple looking extraction of a bike from a docking station process?

Unfazed, having faced bigger challenges in my life, I put the key back in the dock. But by now it was too late. Cycle Hire Bike 14964 was not budging. My mind started to spin. Presenting me with hundreds of unthinkable scenarios of why it didn’t work. Perhaps it’s a well known secret amongst Boris Bikers that you never, never borrow Cycle Hire Bike 14964? Perhaps this is a plot by Boris Johnson to prevent London Cyclist from borrowing a bike and suddenly he will emerge from the nearby bushes laughing full heartedly at my miserable situation and snapping pictures on his iPhone to put up on his Twitter account.

Damn him and his evil plots.

My friend, who was with me at the time, looked at me with her Boris bike. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. I vowed to find a solution. With my phone now in my hands I found myself about to embark on one of the toughest challenges of my life. On the 9th of October 2010 at 17:38 and 27 seconds whilst stood next to Berry Street Cycle Hire Station I was about to call the Barclays Cycle Hire Support Team.

I dialled the number knowing that they were the only ones that could help me now.

Pleased with the speed of someone answering my call and goaded on by passing their security check I optimistically waited for their words of wisdom. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all..

“Have you tried pulling out the bike?”

I was glad to see they had a sense of humour. Of course I had tried to pull out the bike. Why did they think I was standing here? I was no Boris biking fool.

Next they suggested I pull harder.

I started to pull with all my strength. Maybe this was the solution. Maybe we would all laugh later at my embarrassing lack of strength and all would be well again with the world.

But it wasn’t to be. The bike was not moving. We needed something else. A new approach, some blue sky thinking. I awaited their next suggestion, keen by now, almost desperate to try the next thing.

They suggested I pull again, but this time harder.

Surely we’ve already tried this? Einstein said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result. But I doubted myself. Maybe I truly wasn’t pulling hard enough.

So once again I pulled it with all my strength. The passing cars started to look at me funny. Like I was vandalising the bike. If a police car arrived I’d soon be in the back of it, explaining to them that it’s what Boris’ minions wanted me to do.

No movement.

Again I searched for answers from the support staff. Again they suggested I pull the bike harder. This continued for around 10 minutes at which point it was time to step things up a level. I wanted to speak to a supervisor.

To protect his name, let’s call him John. John will have the answers I thought. He’s the kind of person where if there’s a problem with a bike he’ll deal with it. On John’s watch no Boris Biker is ever left behind. Or at least so I thought. Once again the suggestion floated to pull the bike really hard. Once again it didn’t work. I had lost count of how many times we’d tried the same suggestion. Desperation was beginning to turn to anger.

As I took a deep breath and received a sympathetic pat on the back from my friend I stated the facts as I could see them to John:

“We’ve been trying the same thing for about 15 minutes now John and let’s face facts, it isn’t working.”

For good measure I threw in some encouragement:

“Now we’re both on the same team here.”

And finished with a bit of light-heartedness:

“Isn’t there some kind of magic button you can press to release another bike for me?”

I’d pulled off the friendly customer 101. Surely now a solution would be on my hands and we’d soon be on our way to Regents Park.

John had other ideas. Had I tried lifting the bike and dropping it?

As someone who was trying to rent a bike not test to see if the gravitational pull of the earth is still working I can’t say I had tried that. I promptly did, realising this was the only way to move to the next stage in this ever escalating game of ridiculous suggestions that I seemed to have unwillingly entered myself into.

Once this stage was finally passed and I had lifted and dropped Cycle Hire Bike 14964 three times John relented.

He told me to hold the line.

What happened next on the other end of the line I can only imagine happened as follows..

John called up Boris Johnson. He asked him for authorisation to use the secret button. Boris gave the go ahead. Then two little elves appeared with a secret key. John placed the secret key into a keyhole under the desk. A red button emerged labelled: “Solve the customers problem”. He pressed it.

Back on the line with me he told me to try another bike. I slid in my key and the bike released without any issue.

Putting the phone back against my ear I thanked John and cycled to Regents Park with my friend.

Two days later I received my phone bill:

I learned three things that day:

• A 23 minute and 09 second call to an 0845 numbers costs £3.94.
• Boris Bikes are really, really theft proof
• Before you call the support line lift and drop the Boris Bike at least 3 times and try and pull it out with all your strength for at least 15 minutes

I’m not sure if Cycle Hire Bike 14964 is still out there. Causing misery for people. Heed my warning. If see Cycle Hire Bike 14964 stay away from it. It’s cursed.

Green light, pedal down, I start powering my way in the direction of Hyde Park. Draft a bus (I can’t make resolutions to end all my bad cycling habits) and then get caught up at another dreaded red light. 10 seconds pass, 20 seconds. I’m getting nervous. We’re off again only to get caught by another red light 0.1 of a mile away. Now I’m really sure I’m going to be late.

Can you relate to this experience? It got me thinking about how much of our time we, as cyclists, waste waiting at red lights. So I ran a little experiment using the Edge 705 I’m borrowing off the nice people at Garmin for a couple of months. Every time I would arrive at a red light I would tap the lap button and then as I set off again I would tap the lap button again.

So here is what I found..

The shocking result of my unscientific experiment…

17% of my time was spent at a traffic light. A total of 9 minutes 57 seconds out of 56 minutes of cycling.

I must admit it feels like a lot more. But maybe I’m just the impatient sort of person that wants everything now. The sort of person that could benefit from a more Zen Habits approach to life.

So what can you do while spending 17% of your journey waiting at a red light?

1. Practise your track standing.
2. Give evils (official term: establish eye contact) with all the drivers behind you so they realise your position on the road.
3. Or you could think about how long you could survive chained to a bed with a Velociraptor?
4. Or perhaps you could dream up a world where traffic lights were never invented?
5. Spark up a conversation with the cyclist next to you?

I’ll see you at the red lights. I’m the one who swears each time the light turns red…

See also:

• What is your traffic light strategy?
• Would you like a fine or a safety course for jumping that red light?
• Who are the least courteous drivers in London?

It’s true. The London School of diving have taken a stationary bike, placed it underwater and claimed to have invented:

“World’s First Underwater Turbo-Training Bike”

In other words a bit of underwater cycling. The reason behind it is uncertain. There is definitely a publicity element charity element to it with the £100 entry fee is being given to Sports Relief.

The whole shoving a bike underwater and then attempting to cycle isn’t a very new sport (many have probably taken the first steps to doing this inadvertently when cycling through potholes in recent days). There was even the case of the woman who tried to cycle underneath Brighton Pier. Though looking at the state of her bike I was surprised it even went anywhere on land.

If you fancy a bit of underwater cycling then for details in how to take part check out this page.

Unfortunately I cannot see this fantastic idea ever seeing the light of day due to lack of approval by the relevant authorities. Speaking of light however does brings me nicely onto the second part of this post. Michael Mandiberg uses retroreflective vinyl on his bike to be more visible at night. Check out the effect below:

You may also be interested in:

• Wasting some time by playing online cycling games
• Getting the latest London cyclist posts to your inbox so you don’t even have to lift a finger to receive the awesomeness!
• E-mailing me with your great ideas

At first I thought it was someone trying to hijack my bike but when I realised it was a police officer I glared “Yes, officer”. This served only to anger more the man of the law who proceeded to tell me the obvious. I had gone through a red light and that upset him.

Thinking up excuses as I grabbed a few short breaths I suggested the light was orange when I went through and why was I the only cyclist to be caught out of the two of us that went through the light.

The police man was having none of it. I paid my fine and learnt an important lesson – next time I will check for police before skipping a red light.

With a recent article stating that cycling down a one way street may be given the OK for cyclists could this one day extend to red/orange lights?

If any of London Cyclists’ readers have been caught by the police for anything I would love to hear from them, please leave a comment…

Image courtesy of: DannyMcL

• Whilst riding past a guy one day who just smiled & said “Morning”….. he was crouched down at the side of trail having a dump at the time
• When riding along the river bank one Sunday afternoon in Glasgow Green, I was asked by a young lady if I was “looking for business”
• When cycling along Camden high street in London in the late evening I heard someone shout “Looking for dope? Makes you go faster!”
• “Race you to the top!” by bloke in a wheelchair
• “Do you want a go on my inhaler?” – by old bearded man as I cycled past at snail pace due to the thick mud
• Cycle touring in summer heat, slogging up a hill I heard an approaching car slow down. As it drew level, an ice block was thrust out the window to me with a cheery “this is a present from jesus” (Comment left by: Ola)

Have you heard any great quotes/insults? Leave a comment below or read the comments people have already left

Other posts you may be interested in:

• Great online cycling games
• Top 6 things we cyclists love to do to annoy drivers
• Stupid bike facilities – too ridiculous for words

Don’t miss out on more posts such as this one by subscribing to the London Cyclist RSS feed or e-mail feed.

Image via: Teng Sun Flickr