Another 'is this bike any good?' thread

When I go in on Tuesday I will ask if I can keep the tyres because of the inconvenience of having to go back for them to put it all right.

Perhaps I can even persuade them to fit them for me :)

Been out this morning, distances are getting further each time I ride now and I didn't realise quite how much difference a headwind would make as it's quite breezy out there today.

I'm sure this isn't particularly fast but it was good for me.

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Went in on Tuesday and it took a while for them to understand what I was expecting, I walked out with a new bike with all the accessories and I was able to keep the tyres.

This evening was the first chance I've had to take it for a ride and before I'd even done half a mile, I changed from two to three on the left clicker, the chain came off and got jammed. I couldn't get it unjammed so I walked it home and did it there.

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Went out again, the gears are just rubbish. When I change from three to two on the left clicker, it doesn't do it, I have to force it from three to one and then back to two. It's rattly, noisy and generally unreliable. Totally unlike the first bike I had where all the gear changes were quick, rattle and noise free and perfectly reliable.

I'm taking it into a different branch of Halfords tomorrow because I don't want to drive thirty miles back to the original shop and I want to ride the bike over the weekend.

If this hadn't been bought through C2W, I'd be throwing it back at them, asking for a refund and walking away. That's how fed up I am with this.
 
That's probably an issue with indexing and limit screw setup rather than "the bike being rubbish". It's a relatively simple fix and it's possible to do yourself, but if you're buying a bike from a shop it's a reasonable expectation that they will do it properly and also give it a tune up after a couple of weeks once everything's broken in. The issue with Halfords is that the service is so hit and miss.
 
Went to my local branch, he was very apologetic, put it on a stand, spent twenty minutes adjusting stuff and then said I should go for a ride. Plopped around the car park, went out onto the road, got a bit of speed up, into the top gears and then this happened as I changed down.

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Walked it back to the shop and I'm going back tomorrow afternoon so they'll have time to sort it properly.

Yes, I know it's gear setup. I never said the bike is rubbish, I said the gears are just rubbish and by doing what they are, they're clearly rubbish!
 
It looks like both your limit screws are all the way out - the two screws on the mech on the left side of that pic. That rather suggests they don't have a clue what they're doing, as I can't believe that's the way it should be set up. That would quite likely allow the mech to travel way beyond the bounds of your chainrings, which would explain why it's dropping the chain off the bottom or pushing it off the top.

You'll ruin the paintwork round the bottom bracket before too long if it keeps dropping off the small ring.
 
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I agree with von, there's probably nothing wrong with the hardware, it just hasn't been set up properly, looking at the limit screws, they havent even set it up at all. they wouldn't both be very shiny and at exactly the same height if they have been adjusted properly.

It's something you'll need to learn how to do eventually..

Plenty of youtube tutorials on how to set it up, but it should be set up correctly by the shop, so pretty poor show there by halfords.
 
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Hi,

Sad to see you have had problems with your Marasa. I bought one from Halfords a month or so ago and am very pleased with it. It's a great bike for the price I paid (£240).

However, differently from you I bought it "boxed" (factory sealed) and assembled it myself at home.The front dérailleur (and rear) was already setup out of the box on mine and no adjustment was required so I can only presume someone at your Halfords branch has pretty much sabotaged yours. There was even a sticker on the front dérailleur arm showing where it should "ride" in relation to the chainring when correctly adjusted which they would have to had removed during assembly.

Hope you get it sorted, it really is a good piece of kit when setup correctly.
 
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All sorted yet Feek?

It is a tricky one because you bought a new bike and it should be right so they should fix it. That said, it is a key piece of mechanical knowledge for future maintenance to know how to set the limit screws so if you have any further troubles I'd be tempted to spend 15 minutes with the interweb as a guide and get them both spot on yourself.
 
I now have a working bike and I'm happy. I appreciate what people are saying about learning how to do this myself and I will do that, the point here is that when buying something brand new, I expect it to work properly out of the box and not to have to take it to a third party to make it work or spend time fixing it myself.

I picked it up this evening and went for a plop around town, took a ride along the sea front and back to the shop before ripping the front wheel off again and driving home.

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When I got home, I donned my helmet and gloves and went out for another quick three miles just to make sure it was all good and that the wheel didn't fall off ;) I must have looked like a proper cyclist because someone coming the other way on a road bike, all coated in lycra just lifted his fingers off the handlebars and nodded to acknowledge me!

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It is worth learning, but I absolutely agree that this sort of thing should be sorted before the bike leaves the shop. Just because it's trivial for us to diagnose and fix doesn't mean it's ok for halfords to let you take it away in that state.
 
Feek said:
Three options, road, mountain or cross. I read somewhere that Strava support said a hybrid should be set as a cross, would road be a better option?
Click to expand...

If you only ride it on the road then road would be the better option. It only effects the estimated power (and therefore calories) so if that doesn't bother you then it makes no difference.
 
I made a concerted effort today to go for distance rather than speed. Strava logged my ride as about a mile and a half shorter than it actually was, I can see that it missed a big chunk along the seafront because as I scroll through, it jumps a long way.

Actually saying that about speed, my average speed for this ride isn't bad at all. The whole ten mile stretch from home to the sea front and all the way along was on shared footpaths/cycle ways and there were a lot of people about so I really was taking it easy. My speed went up as I hit the road sections.

This is my longest ride by far. I stopped a couple of times just for a drink out of my bottle and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't end up with jelly legs, I wasn't dripping with sweat when I finished.

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