Cycling newbie!

[johnwilliams77]

Daston said:

Turns out the CX has sold out and they can only find one up north that they apparently cant ship to their store!

So its the Road Comp bike instead, application went through today so will be a couple of weeks until I get it.

Thanks for the suggestions and help guys I will no doubt get some photos of my travels.


Any bets for how soon I will fall over because I can't unclip my feet?

Fit the pedals which have clip in on one side and flat on the other for shoes. This way you don't need the clip in shoes for the short commute and can use them for longer cycles.

[Zigster]

RicharDC5 said:

I was given a cheap Halfords bike as an unwanted gift a few years ago. Within 100 miles riding there was so much wrong with the bike it was a write off. You don't need to spend £1000 on a bike to get something decent, but going really cheap (say sub £200 new) you are likely to end up with a bike which is breaking all the time.

This.

If you go too cheap, the bike will be so horrid to ride and unreliable that you will never use it.

You don't need to spend the full £900 but even spending £300-£400 (net will be less because of the tax breaks) will get you something a hell of a lot nicer to live with than a £100 Apollo PoS from Halfords. And it will last a lot longer too.

[Shaw Tarse]

Deerfoot said:

idiotgap said:

Buy secondhand!

I`ve just bought a very nice Specialized Allez from Gumtree. The guy selling it bought it to get into cycling, did around 5-6 rides and lost interest. It was in his garage covered in dust complete with the factory safety stickers and LBS installed reflectors etc.

After a good clean it looks like new apart from a small scratch on the top tube. He even threw in some lights (will fit to my son`s bike) some GT85 and a Specialized helmet. He paid over £800 for it (invoice was supplied too) in 2013 and I paid roughly 25% of the original cost.

I`ll sell my present Giant and treat it to some new tyres...

That's OK for those who know, but for a total newbie, how could I avoid buying a cut & shut, stolen, nail?

[idiotgap]

Shaw Tarse said:

Deerfoot said:

idiotgap said:

Buy secondhand!

I`ve just bought a very nice Specialized Allez from Gumtree. The guy selling it bought it to get into cycling, did around 5-6 rides and lost interest. It was in his garage covered in dust complete with the factory safety stickers and LBS installed reflectors etc.

After a good clean it looks like new apart from a small scratch on the top tube. He even threw in some lights (will fit to my son`s bike) some GT85 and a Specialized helmet. He paid over £800 for it (invoice was supplied too) in 2013 and I paid roughly 25% of the original cost.

I`ll sell my present Giant and treat it to some new tyres...

That's OK for those who know, but for a total newbie, how could I avoid buying a cut & shut, stolen, nail?

You want a bike someone bought new and then hardly used. I managed to get my first one as a newbie... I did have a friend give me some pointers though.

Some tips:-
- Look for or ask for evidence of the original sale documentation to make sure it's not stolen. There are bike checker services you can use with the frame number also.
- Check the bike looks virtually unused in the pictures and isn't showing the rustiness a bike kept outside can't escape.
- Work out what model year the bike is by googling for images of the make/model
- Once you have the model year, google that with the make and model, most often Evans or someone will still show the spec
- If the tyres are the same as originally supplied and the handlebar tape looks the same and spotless there's a reasonable chance the bike hasn't been used much
- look at the chain rings, is there a shark fin shaped profile to the teeth, that indicates significant mileage (nice even teeth mean worst case that the bike has been looked after).
- When you get to physically look at the bike, check for play between the handle bars and the frame and in the cranks, check the wheels run true and check the rims for wear. If there is a deep groove in the braking surface or neat holes drilled into it, they are the wear indicators the manufacturer put in to show you how much 'meat' remains. If the surface is concave through wear against the brake blocks the wheels are on the way out.
- Make sure the shifters work ok, they are expensive to replace and many are impossible to repair.

Of course it's not essential to buy a hardly used one and there will be plenty of honest, looked after but well ridden bikes on sale, just a bit harder with those to be sure there aren't things on the way out.

[Shaw Tarse]

Thanks, I'm thinking I want a bike, was thinking about something from Halfords as I don't want to spend too much, but also don't want to be disillusioned by buying something rubbish.

[idiotgap]

Years of reading the smoker barge thread have conditioned my thinking on almost every purchase car and non-car and these days I can't bring myself to buy new when new old stock, nearly new but used items, or high quality older kit built before economies were introduced represent such good value. My recently purchased best bike is a boutique italian nice thing and only cost me about £600.

it's not for everyone, and if it were, it wouldn't work. It needs the cycle-to-work scheme users and others with a penchant for shiny things to do the buying new from shops. Happily they seem far from a dying breed.

Let us know your approximate location, height, budget, the kind of bike you're looking for and we can find you some options which look appealing.

Edited by idiotgap on Thursday 14th July 09:30

[Zigster]

I'd kind of agree with that, but bear in mind that bicycles are expensive to maintain (by a bike shop, given you're a cycling noob) and repair compared with purchase price.

A full service could easily be £100 plus parts for a bike that was £500 new.

So a £500 bike which you buy for £150 (making up the numbers as I go along) and then needs £100 of servicing and repairs gets pretty close to the Cycle-to-Work net of tax price of a new one. And with the new one you have all the guarantees of buying it from a shop in case anything goes wrong in the first year.

I'm not saying don't buy second-hand, but it could very easily end up being as expensive as buying new.

[idiotgap]

You make a good point, I have 3 young sons (eldest 6) so I've made a commitment to doing my own spannering, that could represent a big saving I suppose. I've been using youtube to learn what to do and acquiring tools as and when required.

That said, not many of the bikes I've acquired second hand have needed much doing at all until I've put some miles on them. One had flat tires through long-term lack of use and one of the inner tubes exploded when pumped up again. Another had stiff shifters which responded well to wd40.

[RicharDC5]

Shaw Tarse said:

Thanks, I'm thinking I want a bike, was thinking about something from Halfords as I don't want to spend too much, but also don't want to be disillusioned by buying something rubbish.

The Carrera range of bikes from Halfords are good value and often recommended (eg subway), so don't be put off from buying from them because of the crap they sell at the bottom of the market.

[Shaw Tarse]

idiotgap said:

Years of reading the smoker barge thread have conditioned my thinking on almost every purchase car and non-car and these days I can't bring myself to buy new when new old stock, nearly new but used items, or high quality older kit built before economies were introduced represent such good value. My recently purchased best bike is a boutique italian nice thing and only cost me about £600.

it's not for everyone, and if it were, it wouldn't work. It needs the cycle-to-work scheme users and others with a penchant for shiny things to do the buying new from shops. Happily they seem far from a dying breed.

Let us know your approximate location, height, budget, the kind of bike you're looking for and we can find you some options which look appealing.

Edited by idiotgap on Thursday 14th July 09:30

Cheers, Birmingham or poss Chester, 29" inside leg £200 - £250 (ish)
Thought mountain bike, but maybe hybrid? tow paths/Wirral way type of riding.

Is this http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/mountain-bik... OK? if I go new... (RicharD)

[idiotgap]

Here's an idea, I'm not sure on sizing, could well be too big, but it's just an idea of the kind of thing you might look at used.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/specialized-crosstrail-c...

original spec http://www.noahsark.co.uk/bike-shop-c1/hybrid-comm...

Original RRP £700 (following season probably available for 550).

[Deerfoot]

That`s the sort of thing. A lot of bike for the money.

[Shaw Tarse]

Thanks, probably too big for my little legs
Looks like a lot of bike just a bit different from my last one 30 something years ago!

[RicharDC5]

Shaw Tarse said:

Cheers, Birmingham or poss Chester, 29" inside leg £200 - £250 (ish)
Thought mountain bike, but maybe hybrid? tow paths/Wirral way type of riding.

Is this http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/mountain-bik... OK? if I go new... (RicharD)

Sorry, I didn't know you were looking at mountain bikes. Suspension adds a lot of cost to a bike, and on budget bikes other components suffer. I don't know much about MTB's, but the bike in the above link having V-brakes would put me off a bit.

[Shaw Tarse]

TBH road/hybrid is probably more what I would need.

[Daston]

Thanks for the help guys.

Picked this up today, to top it off Halfords had a 20% off sale so managed to get a whole load of extras too.



I have taken it out for a quick spin and I can see the addiction already was great fun and with all those gears not too hard work.

Just need to sit down and work out what gear is best for what and how to get into it as I found it would go from very hard to very easy which I am putting down to the front sprocket gears.

[Daveyraveygravey]

Gears and which one to be in is about how fast you're turning the cranks. The experts say 90rpm is the most efficient but you'll find in real life the range is anything from 50 to 110. You can get cadence sensors with Garmin and other kit that will tell you exactly what your legs are doing but in a short number of rides you won't even think about it.