The Pedallers' Arms

In partnership with Leeds Bike Mill, CTC, and City Connect, we present The Big Bike Revival!

There’ll be a celebration of cycles in the city centre – get that unloved bike out of the shed, bring it down to donate or to fix up, join in fun, games, and creativity in the name of cycling ☺ .

Share the Facebook event and tell us you’re coming! Download an A5 flyer to print out and display or distribute!

With a free set of USB rechargeable lights when you fill in a survey!

Throughout the day will be small competitions and activities, the winners of these will be entered into a raffle to win a bike!

This is a bring-a-bike event: bring your old bike, or bring a friend with their bike if they haven’t used it in a while, you can either learn how to fix the bike or it can be donated to Leeds Bike Mill who will repair it and find a good home for it.
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Brompton Two-wheel trailer

We’ve had many core mechanics away, moving, or just off on summer adventures but now its September we are back with more regular opening hours of Mon*, Wed, and Thu 4-8pm. At the moment we are only planning on opening on Saturdays 13th in September but we might open more so check the calender on the website before coming down if you can.

* Except on Mon 22nd when we will open at 6pm

Afternoon all. We’re going to be open much less than usual during August because y’know, it’s August. So, our opening hours will be as follows:

w/c 04/08: open Monday 5 – 8, open Wednesday 4 – 8, closed Thursday and Saturday
w/c 11/08: open Monday and Wednesday 4 – 8, closed Thursday and Saturday
w/c 18/08: closed Monday, open Wednesday 4 – 8, closed Thursday and Saturday
w/c 25/08: closed Monday, open Wednesday 4 – 8, closed Thursday and Saturday.

Subject to change… but we’ll post here.

We’ve got 2 kids bikes for sale, which have just been fixed up by a new volunteer. The small purple one is a ‘Reflex Trend’ priced at £25 and the bigger green one is a ‘Raleigh Max’ priced at £40.

Our Saturday openings in July are:

12th: Closed

19th: Open 12 – 4

26th: Open 12 – 4

We’re open weekdays as usual. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 4 – 8.

You can always check our calendar to the right of the page if you’re not sure!

Our newest mechanic Hannah was interviewed by Shaun Keaveny on his 6 Music show before the Tour de Yorkshire.  We all had a great time watching the tour wizz by and hope that it makes Leeds a more cycle friendly place (even if it could do more to support women cyclists).  Anyway, here is the interview followed by Mungo’s HiFi Bike Rider (note: oiling your chain doesn’t stop your bike exploding 😕)

We are pleased to announce that we are partnering with wy go:cyling to offer both free 1:1 maintenance training sessions, and free maintenance courses delivered over 4 week periods.

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UPDATE 06/06/14: So we won’t be opening every Saturday from now on. We will start sending an email near the beginning of each month with which one’s we are definitely going to be open on. You can also check our calendar on the right hand side; if there are initials next to a date we are open, if there are none we are not! We will keep this up to date and also put out messages about any extra Saturdays on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!

We added Saturdays to our regular opening hours nearly a year and a half ago now, because we wanted to be more accessible for people who struggled to come down on weekday evenings (because of childcare responsibilities, working night shifts etc). We enjoy Pedallers’ being open at the weekend and hope you do too, but we’re sorry to say that it has become a bit of a struggle staffing Saturday shifts and in the future it’s likely you’ll have to check the calendar before coming down on Saturdays. As you will be aware, we are all volunteers with lots of other commitments too and sometimes just need some rest!

But worry not, as we are not yet certain that we will have to reduce the Saturdays we’re open and if we do it will be exactly that, a reduction. We would still aim to be open a few Saturdays a month! This is just a heads up for now, more information to follow once we make a decision.

We are going to be open this bank holiday Mon but a bit later than usual – 5pm start (instead of 4pm).

On a separate note: in the workshop on Sat we had a very stuck bottom bracket. There are a few things we like to try if they are stuck to help remove them:

0. make sure you are loosing not tightening
1. esp. on Italian frames (which are right-hand thread both sides)
2. spray lube on everything
3. make sure that the bottom bracket removal tool is firmly in place (ideally use a crank bolt to hold it in)
4. use a breaker bar (a long extension to increase leverage)
5. blow torch (bit of a last resort…)

We got to step 3. with a breaker bar and applied lots of force to one of our chunky spanners.  Creak, crack, snap:

Solution: put the bottom bracket removal tool in a vice and rotate the bike.

The bottom bracket (in my hand) and the bottom bracket removal tool in the vice.

We’ve got a new mechanic Hannah (who was initiated via a cake eating ceremony last Thursday).  Committing to help run the space, mop the floors, order parts, build stuff, deal with an legal issues etc. is never as fun as helping people with bike mechanics but we find it rewarding to see it all running smoothly and are very grateful for all the people who put in time to make it work.  So thanks for joining us Hannah!