a.) a dog turd
b.) a french tickler
c.) a french tickler mounted on a dog turd.

This is, in fact, a Brake Band-It. It is basically a rubber band with a small handle, to be used as a parking brake for your bicycle.

Many road cyclists (myself included) eschew the weight and look of a kickstand on our bicycles. When we stop riding and get off our bikes, we have to either:

• find a bike rack, or
• lay the bike on the grass on it’s left side, or
• lean the bike against the nearest convenient vertical surface, and hope that it does not fall.

Because of the general scarcity of usable bike rack space and wide open grassy areas, we generally end up doing some variation of “lean the bike”. The problem with “lean the bike” is that the handlebars can turn and the front wheel can roll. The general progression is:

1. lean bike against vertical surface
2. adjust position 2-3 times to minimize potential for movement
3. gently remove hands and tiptoe backwards, slowly
4. turn away from bike, start walking
5. hear bike hitting ground

The Brake Band-It solves this problem by closing the front brake, thus eliminating the possibility of tire rotation, and the resultant crunching bike sound.

I bought mine at Angle Lake Cyclery, near Seattle-Tacoma Airport. They are also available online, at Angletech. My immediate inclination was to buy a million, and hand them out to every kickstand-less cyclist I see. The problem with that plan is that the price of these little gems is $4.00, and I don’t have $4 million hiding under the cushions of my couch. Therefore I’m just going to tell you about these, and you can buy one yourself.

The folklore is that some enterprising fellow produces these by himself, and sells them through Angletech as his sole means of support. No wholesale, no bulk discount. It’s a nice little story, so I will chose to believe it, and pass it on to you as well.