The BEST Mustachian thing in Ottawa - Hoorah for Bicycles

[fatroach]

As a fellow mustachian from Ottawa I wanted to share my favourite mustache friendly location that I have found in town.  Since we all know that bicycles are the secret to happiness and world peace it makes sense that we should know as much about bikes as possible.  To that end I recommend that everyone in Ottawa check out our city's amazing community bike shop.  It's called re-cycles.  They do all sorts of great stuff like
- sell used bikes
- sell used bike parts
- let you use their fancy tools on site to fix your bike (for a fee)
- always have a volunteer mechanic on site to help with any questions or repairs
- let you help fix up the bikes they sell to pay their rent while you learn about bike repair
- offer short classes on bike repair for free

It's nearly all run by volunteers (with one exception), the prices are super cheap, and everyone is welcome regardless of their mechanical skill level or how much they know about bikes.  They're located near Bronson and Gladstone and they're definitely worth checking out if you live in the Ottawa area.

You can find out more at:
www.re-cycles.ca

[swiper]

Thanks, I've been having issues (low stopping power) with my disc brakes for years, I'll make a point to stop in and ask.

[Matt K]

Swiper - your pads are probably contaminated. Pull your pads out, sand them a bit, and clean your rotors with a bit of degreaser. Pads are porous and can absorb oil to the point where you can't just sand off the top layer and you should replace the pads. Pay attention to what brand and material the new pad is - cheaply made pads are down right dangerous. On my Downhill bike, where my brakes really matter (50km/h inches from trees), I don't mess with my pads, and if they get contaminated, they get tossed and new ones go in right away.

I prefer V-brakes for commuting simply because they are much cheaper to replace when contaminated beyond what a quck sanding will solve.

As for recycles, one of my good friends is a head mechanic there. I fully support them and think they are a truely awesome resource in Ottawa. Going in there and fixing your bike yourself is seriously bad ass (and it takes away the mystery of fixing bikes, making bike ownership so much cheaper in the long run). However, I tried buying my wife a commuter bike there, and was really unimpressed. Most the bikes are simply collections of parts they had donated. They aren't nice coherent bikes. The few 'complete' bikes they get and clean up are nice, but are more expensive than buying from craigslist/kijiji and then fixing up.