Folding Bikes - Fire

Oh Ive found this message box. How come its away down here? Is it for people that use 50" tvs on there computers. Oh well. Never mind.

A lot of bad things have happened to me recently. My mum died about a year ago. I lost my job. Been waiting nearly a year for to hear about any inheritance. And rats have infested my garrage and eaten a lot of the bike grips. Then got a letter from the solicitors that Im owe them £3000. :eek: As the assetts are to be shared between the 5 of us. But I stay in the family home with 2 brothers. A third share of the house is £3000 more than the share of assetts is.
I dont want to live here. But have no money to move away. My last job was part time. So it was not really enough to rent a place on and pay all the bills. Its my wicked step brother that doesnt want to move. He wants the large garage for his motorbikes and car. There was another meeting at the solicitors. Step brother talked over everyone as usual. He said that I could get a share of the money and he and my other brother would get to own the house. Which is slightly better than owing more money than Ive ever had. If he hadnt said that I would have thrown the house keys at him and then went and drowned myself in the Loch. :cry:
His condition was that I move all my stuff. He sounded really mental when saying that.:twitchy:
So Ive been moving a lot of my stuff. Hes chucked out some wooden cabinets from the garrage. He seems to think its my fault theres rats. I moved a couple of book cases from my room. I removed the clothes dryer frame thing from its pole in the middle of the grassy back yard. I put the furniture right beside the rocks that are round the pole. I tried to light the papers that I had put in the furniture. Took forever. Its a good thing I dont smoke. As it would take me all day to ignite one ciggarette. I was going up and down the stairs to get more stuff to burn. I threw my guitar on the fire. Was a cheap accoustic that the bridge had ripped off

I come round the corner to my yard. The flames had got high. The furniture was about 3 feet. And the flames must have been 10 feet.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/fire.jpg

Then the wind caught the flames and drove them down and across to the load of bikes I had parked about 8 feet away. There was plastic bags covering them. Which caught fire.
I got my Dutch bucket. I call it that after the Dutch folktale about the little boy who saves the day by putting his finger in the ****...sea wall...to stop the flood. The bucket had a hole in it, you can see the white crease about an inch or so above the base.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/dutchbucket.jpg
I have better buckets. But they were beside my bikes. Dutch bucket was beside my two 4 foot high water barrels. I ran back and forward throwing water over things. Mostly on the wall of my neighbours shed. It had green bitumin felt hanging on it and over my stone wall. I was shouting FIRE HELP all the time. There was workers digging up my neighbours electric cables. So they came to the edge of my garden. I told them to phone the Fire brigade.
I had emptied one of the full water barrels on the flames when the youngest Police officer in the world came into my yard and told me to stop. I only had a bit of the fire to put out.
2 fire engines came to put the fire out. When the first one stopped, a bit fell off it:rolleyes: But was only a bit of plastic on the door hinge.
I hope I dont get charged with anything. I was worried that my neighbour has one of those Garden tractors. But it was in his other shed. There expensive. Smoke and flames didnt get much into his shed. Its light coloured wood. And I can see a mirror on the wall thats about 2 feet from where the flames were.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/burntbikes.jpg

I moved some of the burnt bikes. I thought I just had MTBs there. Would be bikes that Im fixing up. But theres my blue Raleigh 20 and my green RSW.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/blue20.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/blue2034.jpg
That was a complete bike.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/greenrsw.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/rswheadstock.jpg
That bike didnt have its brakes or mudguards on it.

I have shown those pics on another website. A man wanted them to restore. I think there too far gone. The metal might be weakened. I didnt see any braze dribbled out of the joints though.

This alloy Raleigh Y frame was beside the glass panels, where I was standing while tyring to put the fire out. Its got its headstock melted off. :eek:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/meltedbike.jpg

I had an alloy framed MTB. This is all I could find of it.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/alloyleftovers.jpg

And I thought I was having a bad weekend!

Sorry to hear about all your problems. Sincerely hope you get some luckier breaks in 2010.

Best wishes and good luck!

Thank Chop.

They say that life begins at 40. Will be that at the end of February.

Wow. That's insane. Hope things work out for the better for you.

' really sorry to see this happened to you. I hope the future brings better things to you.

Grift,

Don't let it get you down, it's hard...I know.

As 'ol Winnie was wont to say....Never give in, never give in, never give in.

Thinkin' of ya, mate.

Thanks folks

Im trying to be cheerfull. I guess I'll get to live somewhere else and meet new people. been here way to long. I was thinking of keeping my Marin and my city folder bike. Get rid of everything else. Ive given away a lot of bikes to the secondhand bike shop. Think a lot of stuff will go to scrap yard. My sisters got a big truck that she can take stuff away.

Wow it seems to me some folks get a lot more of the bad breaks than others... I guess I am one of the blessed ones... wish I could help out. Here's thinking of you mate.

Wow, those pictures of the burned-out bikes are heart-breaking. My condolences for them and for all the other challenges you've been facing recently.

Wow it seems to me some folks get a lot more of the bad breaks than others... I guess I am one of the blessed ones... wish I could help out. Here's thinking of you mate.

Yes, it's easy to be happy in life when things go well, you can become complacent or even self-satisfied,
But it's a measure of one's fortitude or persistence to still be cheerful when things go awry.
I sometimes ponder on the simple life and being happier with less, pity some of my roadie friends are obsessed with blingomania for their CF wonderbikes.

just spennt several months mowing to a different house and get organized. it is hell when you`we managed to collect as much stuff as I have. try to look at it as freedom, free from family members you should have left yrs ago (it is really dangerous to be around energy wampires for a long time) and not having all your stuff is going to make the mowe much easyer. try to just keep what you really need, makes life much easyer."It is a rough change the fox said as he was skinned.." . Wish I could help.

I had my sister and her boyfreind come here in there large Ford Transit pick up truck. We loaded it up with bike parts for them to take to the scrap yard to weigh in for cash.
Heres the fire place with out the burnt bikes.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/fireplace.jpg
They took the first load away and it was under a tonne of metal. Then the second load was nearly twice that. Bit too much for the truck really. But the cops that they saw, didnt stop them.:thumb:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c296/Alecw35/vanload.jpg
So they got over £200 for all the metal. They came back and took a load of wood and a motorbike and stuff.
Theres still more to take. Maybe a couple of loads still.

It is terrible you lost your bikes. But I want to second what badmother said: this loss may lighten your burden and help you leave a living situation where you are clearly unhappy and not thriving.

There was mostly cheap nasty bikes in the load. But there was a Trek 4100 and a 1978 Dawes Galaxy in amoungst them. Trek was too big for me. I was planning on doing up the Galaxy. I had replaced the cones in the Maillard large flange hubs. Stripped off all the components. Was going to paint it black. Might sell the cranks and stuff. I used to be in the bike club in the 80s. And there was a few of the members that had Galaxys. I had a Carlton Corsair and a Bob Jackson at that time.