Education We Like to Ride Bicycles

No I would be a cash buyer. There is a cycle to work scheme at my work place which uses the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative but I would prefer to be a cash buyer. I live 30 miles away from my work place so I would be hard pushed to justify it under the work scheme and I would rather buy the bike outright than under the hire purchase scheme with potentially another payment at the end of it.

IIRC do you work in a LBS Cookie Monster? If so which are your popular entry level bikes?

Thank you for your input guys. My brother in law bought a bike from Halfords (not sure which model) took it out for its first ride and realised something wasn't right. They had put the front fork on backwards. That's why I wanted to know if a bike like the Voodoo was worth the Halfords gauntlet.

 

I actually heard that because Halfords have such big purchasing power they can actually provide quite nice bikes for reasonable prices (I was told the Boardman range are not bad). I have no idea how true this is because I've never tried riding one, maybe somebody else has some inside information on this?

 

Boardmans are well spec'd for the price and if you like the way they ride they'll probably be ok.

The problem comes if something breaks, buddy of mine was back into Halfords every week with broken spokes it took about 4 months before they replaced it. Of course this can happen at other bike shops it just that Halfords has a poor reputation and I don't think they spend a lot on staff training, YMMV I think is the most appropriate response to considering Halfords.

 

Yes mate I work in a LBS. Where do you live? I've a good friend who is a bike rep, if you live in his area maybe he can recommend a decent LBS who won't fill you full of crap.

From the brands I stock I would recomment anything from Giant and Trek (I dont stock them but you can also include Specialized and Cube in this). You then have the likes of GT / Mongoose / Claud Butler which are still ok bikes but are seen as a slight step down in bang per £.

Something different at the moment are Forme, they offer a nice spec'd bike at a reasonable price, all their frames come with a lifetime warranty, hubs run sealed bearings.

As far as what's popular I can sell anything from £300 up to about £700 quite easily, looking at the bikes you listed it looks like your prepared to spend up to £600 so I'll list a few bikes below worth looking at,

Giant Revel 0 - £500
Giant Revel LTD 1 - £580
Giant Talon 3 - £600 (frame is slightly different making for a better ride on trails)

Trek 4300 - £500
Trek 4500 - £575

Forme Sterndale 1 - £500

 

I have a problem.
I recently posted on here about my newly built old school BMX.
The issue I have is that the seatpost (22.2mm) does not fit the 24.2 seatube 9Damn non-standard size!)
Can't find a shim for love nor money to make it fit.
Can anyone on here help?

Thanks
Mike

 

A small sheet of 1mm thick alumium and make your own?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aluminium..._Metalworking_Supplies_ET&hash=item5646cfff9e

 

What are peoples opinions on exercise bikes?

I seem to have gone off of riding recently, no desire, however since I watch a couple of hours of TV/Film a day, thought an exercise bike would be a good way of getting a couple of hours of 'riding' in a day on top of any normal riding I may choose to do.

 

If you have a road bike think about getting a turbo trainer. You can ride a couple of hours a day and burn >1000 calories without pushing too hard. And it's really good for you to train at UT2 for long periods of time. If you're serious about training and haven't already got one get a heart rate monitor too.

 

I don't have a roadbike, although am tempted to see if I could find someone who wanted to do a swap with my current bike Since most of my riding seems to be onroad, seems silly having an offroad bike.

I'm not serious about training, I just feel like I'm getting lazy, and putting on weight, so think cycling for a couple of hours a day at a half decent intensity (well, enough to break a sweat but still be able to watch stuff) would do me some good. Although a heart rate monitor wouldn't be bad, would help me with a target etc.

 

On that topic, can anyone recommend me a good turbo trainer (i.e. one that goes on the back wheel) for not too much?

With work these days I have less time to keep fit, and I know the answer is to cycle to work, but I am never in the mood to do it.

 

24.2mm isn't so uncommon that it doesn't exist (I have a couple kicking about the shop, actually), so I would see if your LBS can order one in for you. Aside from this, if you are not too caught up on aesthetics I would suggest just using the age-old "beer-can" shim technique (yes, it is exactly like it sounds: cut an aluminium can apart and use it's juicy metal as a shim stacked in layers). Otherwise you're spot on about pre-fab shims being few and far between (I've personally never heard of one, so there is a not unreasonable chance they don't exist).

Love em. The more you spend the quieter it will be and the longer it will last, so I would suggest not going too cheap. Feature sets vary widely, so ensure you know what you want out of it well before you go shopping, otherwise you'll more than likely end up with something you'll despise, which is unfortunate. Unfortunately I'm not well versed in specific models (though turbo trainers and rollers I'm good with, see below), but a basic guideline would be to just go around to a few places and hop on them during a quiet time to take them "for a spin", as it were. Listen very carefully to how loud it is, and pay attention to vibration, as these will be the two major sticking points that cause most people to give them up in short order. Also be sure to pay attention to the onboard computer (if applicable) and how it operates. Can you figure it out? If not, no amount of training in it's use will help you when you are bonking and need to know right now what your wattage and heart rate is. The simpler it is to operate the better, even if this is at the compromise of features (within reason). I would much rather have a simpler system with fewer features than one I simply cannot operate because I'm too tired to remember what the button sequence is for what I am looking for.

Insofar as feature sets go, most will have heart rate and cadence, but I would personally want wattage and a programmable resistance curve, as these are all fantastic features to further push yourself (yes, even whilst you are sat in front of a television trying to work off that Jaffa you had at lunch). Heart rate and wattage allows you to directly track your fitness, cadence allows you to ensure you are actually doing something (above or below a certain cadence you won't be doing much of anything, other than getting tired). Programmable resistance curves allow you to set your workout in advance, allowing you to focus on just keeping your heart rate up and seeing what the latest little starlet on that reality television show you openly hate (but secretly watch) is doing today. This is not a feature to overlook, but does generally cost money and adds quite a lot of complexity.

Cyclops. I have a Fluid2 and love it and have never sold one to somebody that came back with a complaint, plus the company is wonderful to deal with insofar as warranty goes.

They aren't the cheapest though, but the problem with wanting one for "not too much" is that they are quite horrifically loud and they have no resistance curve, feeling very flat and not offering much in the way of room to expand fitness wise (plus you'll go deaf and require arthritis pills within a year). As I said above in regards to the exercise bike your best bet is to go around to several local places when they are quiet and try a few out, paying attention to noise levels and vibration, and seeing if they offer enough resistance for your needs. Any shop that actually wants to sell a trainer will have them on display with a bike hooked up, so if they do not: run.

If memory serves I did a more in-depth write up on trainers a good while back in this thread, so that might be worth pursuing, though I would be happy to go over anything not stated in this post once more if you should so need clarification or more information

 

Thank you, I shall try that.

 

As it's an old school build I'm guessing he has a seatpost from the 80's and wishes to keep the parts list from the 80's. Beer can shim will also work.

 

Here is my bike:-

I went for as much NOS from the 80's as I could and some repro parts.

 

Oh how I lusted for a Kuwi in the 80's. These days I have a Standard 250l.

 

Same here!
I always thought an ET Kuwahara would just be waiting for me one Christmas but it never happened!
I am now 43 and have the money to build one.
It cost a total of £541 and about 6 months of part sourcing.
Just want to get out on the bugger now!

 

You've managed to do that fairly cheaply then considering the ridiculous prices of some old school parts these days.

My Standard stands me about £1250 all told but that's a new school build.

 

The repro Dia Compe calipers were only £40 a pair...one old school one goes for crazy money!
I had SE racing forks 2nd hand for £73 and the cro moly frame was a snip @ £50, so had some bargains.

 

I think back in 2003/4 you could get a set of original MX1000s for about £35, nowadays not a chance.