Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => Topic started by: Kim on 26 February, 2013, 10:35:10 pm
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Legend has it that in days of yore, these were used to secure one's feet to the pedals of a velocipede, such that one might topple slowly into yonder brambles, or cause alarm to passing ladies when instructed to wait by a constable directing traffic.
(http://www.spacycles.co.uk/smsimg/109/2606-8037-main-leather_toe_strap-109.jpg) (http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b109s168p2606)
Obviously we're all far too sensible to tie our feet to our bicycles, but the straps live on, often in a modern nylon webbing form. And bloody useful things they are too.
So, let's see how quickly we can get to 101 :)
I'll kick off with fitting stubborn tyres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XUFVrl0UT4
http://youtu.be/-XUFVrl0UT4
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#2 Holding a rear derailleur up to the frame to reduce chain tension and allow easy chain joining/splitting
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I still use them as toestraps! I like having a bike with ordinary pedals, and since that's generally fixed, I find toestraps quite useful.
Also, #3: keeping a Carradice snug with the seatpost.
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Strap front wheel to down tube when bike is in the work stand to stop it turning e.g. when taping bars
Rob
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carrying a spare front wheel on a low rider rack
carrying a cape on the loops of a saddlebag
as a more reliable trouser clip.
I'll add some non cycling ones when I remember.
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Holding a brake lever on to act as a parking brake (for added stability when on a propstand, on trains and so on).
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Bicycle-based uses? Or can I tell you about how I use them to hold my photography stuff together?
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Holding my tool roll together. Yes, I know there are such things as multitools, but sometimes a chap needs a full sized discrete bit of metal.
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Like Deano, we still use some for their intended purpose. I use a couple to carry a tripdod on a rucksack.
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I once went on a cycling weekend to the area around Loch Tay with some friends from the Edinburgh RC. Early drive up Saturday morning for two long day rides with a night in the youth hostel. As we unpacked the car and got ready to roll on Saturday morning, I changed into my cycling shoes - first generation Sidi Genius, probably the first to have the ratchet fastening that all shoes have these days. The ratchet broke as I tightened them up - disaster! I couldn't do two days of cycling with my foot pulling out of the shoe on every little climb (the first Sidi Genius had a ratchet and only one small velcro strap at the toe)!
Somebody gave me an old leather toestrap from the pack under his saddle to wrap round my loose shoe... ok, better than nothing. Then I unscrewed the ratchet base from the side of the shoe to reveal a groove in a nylon moulding exactly the right width for a toestrap to settle into. I spent the next two days marvelling at how secure my broken shoe felt in comparison to the other.
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A couple of well established ones are holding a spare tub under the saddle and when using wheel carriers holding the rim to the bars.
I also use 2 to attach my saddle bag to the saddle which hasn't got loops.
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Strap two spare tubes to my seat stays.
Strap waterproofs to top of my saddlebag.
Hold my bike securely against the inside of the car.
Comedy cock'n'balls strapping.
Securing bikes at umpteen extra points on a car rack.
Use a few together to hold the boot of a hatchback down with an oversize load.
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Comedy cock'n'balls strapping.
Remind me never to ask to see your party piece :o
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Securing bikes at umpteen extra points on a car rack.
I remember getting a lift to a race with a club member when I was a student, not racing myself but supporting a couple of friends. Two bikes were upturned onto ordinary roof bars, toestrap round the saddle and toestrap round the 'bars and that was it!
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Improvised shermer's neck support. If you're really lucky it's possible to integrate baler twine, cable ties and an inner tube for a bodging full-house.
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Ah! I've got a good'un :thumbsup: I always have one looped on the RHS of my h/bars (on all bikes), so that when I stop at a cafe, 11s'is etc, I loosen the strap, slid it over the font brake lever, then nip it up!, stops the front wheel moving which causes the bike to turn away front the wall, and slide along. Interestingly, one can nip this up and rest a bike against a wall on a 45 deg slope, without it moving. Quite interesting to do this and see how many passers by notice the 'apparantly unteathered' bike perform death defying anti gravitational tricks.! ::-)
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I used one on my tourer to prevent the fuel bottle in the bottle cage under my down tube from bouncing out.
Also, to re-attach my pannier to the rack when the clips were sheared off by a careless Indian motorcyclist.
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I still use them as toestraps! I like having a bike with ordinary pedals, and since that's generally fixed, I find toestraps quite useful.
+1, though I don't ride fixed, I like to wear whatever shoes I want. Don't get on with SPDs etc.: traffic light calls of "Timberrrr!" as cyclists fail to unclip in time...
Toe straps also useful for holding bags onto racks, and suchlike.
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More than twenty years after swapping to clipless, I'm amazed at the way I can always find another toestrap when I need one. They must breed in dark corners.
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i used toe straps to carry rolled up waterproof jacket tied to brooks saddle loops; also to carry bike wheels tied to the top handle of rucksack (cable ties also do the job)
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On a tow-ball rack (no relation to Graham's post :) ) for:
1. Attaching flappy rear mtb mudguard to rear wheel to stop it flapping in the breeze.
2. Attaching front wheel to down tube ditto
3. Attaching bike to rack (when not too worried about the paint or if the protections are up to the job).
Also for reducing the volume of my saddle pack to stop it dragging on the rear wheel with a short tandem partner
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I needed to take a rear wheel to my (not very) lbs today. It fit nicely flat on top of my rear rack. Only one strap to a seat stay and it was solid as a rock.
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Not strapping toes. Really.
See Jock strap for evidence.
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Several of the above + a single toestrap fixes a narrow D lock to my racktop unobtrusively and releases / installs faster than most purpose built lock carriers.
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A single toestrap wound crosswise does a great job of securing a Tesco torch to my handlebars for a bit of auxiliary lighting.
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Make Ortlieb panniers a bit less quick release by strapping the handles to the rack, when travelling through bandit country.
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Make Ortlieb panniers a bit less quick release by strapping the handles to the rack, when travelling through bandit country.
Can also be achieved (on roll-top versions) by crossing over the straps to the opposite pannier. On the rear, anyway.
Ob-toestraps: Getting a decent grip on a 'sucked' chain, for extraction purposes.
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Make Ortlieb panniers a bit less quick release by strapping the handles to the rack, when travelling through bandit country.
And if you are in bandit country, make sure you (in close-up) slowly undo the toe straps from your six-shooters before the lead starts flying...
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Slightly OT, but I heard the story of a cycle tourist in Africa who was so nervous about being robbed by the locals (he was a local himself - in the same vein, I left my bike unlocked in loads of places to the horror of the locals, but I wouldn't dream of doing it in Darlo) that he carried a sawn-off shotgun.
Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately) he'd strapped it to his top tube, in such a way that he was unable to remove it. There's a use for toestraps.
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Holding a rolled-up waterproof jacket or other garment on top of an old Carradice Prima rack bag.
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Secures the floppy legs of my Park PCS 9 home mechanics stand and means I can move it around more easily, as well as stow it upright in a tight corner of the garage without it randomly falling over.
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round bits of the bike to make a loop to hang it on the wall.
And as proper toe straps.
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Securing wine bottles to plastic bottle cages.
In England
(http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u249/freddered/IMG_5629.jpg)
In France
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-uI6VVfQhmKU/T7IuJyhqdfI/AAAAAAAAAD0/eeUyJbWZG0w/s640/IMG_2395_1.JPG)
Securing my Ortlieb saddlebag to my saddle rails (when I discovered that Ortlieb's adapter doesn't fit a Brooks)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-PYQloICfBug/UQKwrG5ujZI/AAAAAAAAA0o/qKfaN3p4KQ0/s902/CameraZOOM-20130125130424387.jpg)
Securing my Waterproof to outside of Barley
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f_q_lmgkvDQ/UL3shoUuB5I/AAAAAAAAAsc/ME8DYnHBsjo/s640/Orbit+2012b.jpg)
As a parking brake on ferries (and to lash frame to solid piece of Ferry)
(http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo237/chillmoister/St%20Malo%20to%20Cherbourg%20-%20May%202012/291.jpg)
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Inspired by this thread, having been brought here from Skip Bike And Bodge It by a very helpful link by Kim, I have just this minute invested £2.44 in some spare ones, from eBay. In passing, I should say I was horrified to discover there are now ones with Velcro on them. A disgrace, IMHO. What is the world coming to?
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On Audaxes, I ride with one water bottle, and one sports drink bottle secured to the second cage using a toe strap (because the bottle is too narrow for the cage).
If a bag is slightly too full to close, a strap will bridge the gap.
Like others here, I also use them as toe straps (on one bike only now), as trouser straps (started in the days of massively-flared trousers, that wrapped three times round your leg and bent any cycle clip out of shape), for securing sundry small luggage, to attach tool rolls and similar under the saddle, with wheel carriers, and for other uses that I can't remember now.
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A toe strap is useful for holding brake pads near the rim when replacing the cable. Dead easy with V-brakes, a bit more fiddly with other types.
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# ??
As an ad-hoc scaly resistor, along with an innetrube, whilst securing new posh bike to the railings outside Spoons in beautiful downtown Croydon (of all places, who on earth routes a perm into Croydon FFS?).
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I once used a toe strap to hold a wooden mould together when casting some lead.
Not recommended. The toe strap was fine, but wood isn't the best choice for mould as it charred quite a lot.
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Holds brake lever to handlebar when bleeding hydraulic brakes on the MTB and easy to release when completing the bleed...
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To strap the rear derailleur up to the frame to remove the tension from the chain while removing/ adding links :)
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Holding cycleshoes closed when the strap snaps.
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Fastening the bike to the stands in the guard's van onna train.
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Securing an Islabike to my Carradice Super C saddlebag.
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Securing an Islabike to my Carradice Super C saddlebag.
Wouldn't the other way round be better? :)
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On Monday I met a man who had used a toe strap to smash a car window. Well, sort of....
He had been a time triallist, back in the days when clips and straps were the norm, with shoe plates as well if you were racing, as he was. He was out one day in heavy mist — not sure whether training or racing — when, feeling one strap was loose, he reached down to tighten it and went headfirst through the back window of a parked car. He blamed the toe strap...
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Securing dry bag to the bottom of my saddlepack:
The picture shows using the velcro straps on the bag but I now secure it using toe straps, bit more secure and distorts the shape of the saddlepack a bit less:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70915/2015-03-28%2012.02.11.jpg)
I've also successfully used them for getting a stubborn tyre onto a rim as per video in original post.
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On a similar note, I use one to secure a dry bag between my tri bars (they are only there for comfort on long rides anyway so I don't care about any aero impact of carrying luggage)
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On a similar note, I use one to secure a dry bag between my tri bars (they are only there for comfort on long rides anyway so I don't care about any aero impact of carrying luggage)
Now that's a good shout! Might steal that idea for when I next have a lot of luggage to carry
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Fastening a shopping basket on the rear rack of a Raleigh 20.