First bike in 10~ years - Hybrid?

The ONLY thing he tried to sell (and wasn't pushy at all) was the 1year bike maintenance for £20. It included two services and various other things, I didn't say yes as I'm not sure it's needed.

Other than that he only recommended various mud guards and he said he recommends them from his own experiences etc.
 
Oh thanks, i'll just leave them as they are then until I learn more about bikes!

Who do you guys use for insurance? I've run a few quotes online and they all seem to come out around £40~ for the year.
 
Begbie said:
I don't. What advantages does insurance has? Is it for the bike itself? Or if you hit another car etc?

Yeah the £20 might be worth it, but they have to fix anything that's broke. And most other stuff is simple enough with youtube videos etc.
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I would leave it chained up occationally, such as going into Cafe's etc when out and about.

FrenchTart said:
Insurance - I use Cycleguard. They weren't a major hassle when a car hit me (and the guy being the awesome tool he was denied responsibility..and my witness decided to never return my calls).
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Thanks.

arknor said:
I don't bother with insurance since I don't leave my bike unattended anywhere.
Just become a british cycling member if you want liability insurance

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Pretty sure the 10% halfords discount stacks with any other discounts too but probably to late for you if you already paid :P
you could have essentially got a british cycling membership for free + like £10-£20 for the trouble of signing up when you take into consideration the halfords discount and the fact your spending £600 on a bike
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I'll look into the british cycling this afternoon!
 
Guess I spoke far too soon about Halfords being good.

They only ordered the frame, not the whole ******* bike. Had a phone call from them, they don't have any in the local area or even in their distribution warehouse.

Waiting for a call back.

Absolute joke. I put a £10 deposit down (granted its only £10) but its a 30mile round trip, another 30mile round trip to get my deposit refunded if needed.
 
They have offered me a CX Team at a largely reduced priced.

It'd be a little more than I would have paid for the CX comp, is the team any good?
 
Apparently the CX team used to be a nightmare to try and get mudguards on the front, but they've release updated forks recently which solve the issue. (Found this online)
 
STILL NO BIKE.

I've lost all respect for Halfords now.

Picked up the bike from them, thought I would give it a quick ride around the car park before I put it in the car. Turns out the brakes don't work. I would be doing a slowish ride around the car park, slam the front or back brake on (they're discs) and it would stop me....eventually...maybe after 10-12~feet of holding the brake on full.

Had to leave it there for the mechanic to look at it in the morning, i've told them it's an absolute joke. I'll be complaining tomorrow.

On top of that the bike felt huge. It could just be because i've never sat on a road bike/cross bike before and they didn't even attempt to set it up for my height/reach.

Its a 57.5cm frame. I've checked online and it does say for 180-185cm height (im 184) you should go for a 57cm cyclocross frame, maybe a size smaller for a pure road bike.

I think maybe my seat was too high, it did feel a little stretched when holding onto the top of the handle bars, then when I held the underneath part it just felt unsafe!
 
The test they carry out is picking the bike up and spinning the wheel, then grabbing the brakes hard.

Of course that's going to work, but try it with some weight and momentum ffs :(

I guess i'm just going to have to find somebody to help me set up a riding position. It's got me worried the frame might be too big!
 
The manager did mention the bedding in, so I dragged him outside and road the bike towards him and slammed on the back brake....and kept going :(.

Even he admitted something was wrong.

Hopefully that will get sorted, and hopefully the 57.5cm bike they got isn't too big!

I'm thinking I should be alright once i've altered the seat both down a little and forward, as well as altering the handlebar height/position!

Still really angry at them :(.

Do you think it's worth a complaint?
 
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I'm slowly turning to that nightmare customer you always hear about.

I'm going to try and see if they can get in the Large CX Team (55.5cm) as I want to compare it to the XL 55.7cm one they have sized me for.

I've looked online and they don't have it in stock, but they do have it in stock 12 miles from their store - hopefully they can get it sent down and built for tonight.


edit: I've asked them if they can get the Large sent to the store where I'm collecting the XL from so I can try it - they said no it's impossible :( . Their customer service is incredible. :(
 
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No, i'd say I was pure raging :p

I've drafted my complaints letter, its currently a full A4 page and I have a feeling this isn't even over yet :(

Still waiting on a call back from them ref the brakes. I'm going to ask to speak to the manager, the guy I spoke to this morning didn't even attempt to try get the Large bike delivered to his store - even after the complete mess they've made of my order.
 
Just had a phone call from Halfords, from a guy who could not apologize enough! He's managed to sort it out - he's also got hold of the Original CX Comp which I wanted (in large, not extra large).

Going down to meet him at the store tonight, get fully sized up and to set the bike up properly. Should drive away with it tonight.

The brakes on the CX team were completely knackered apparently.
 
Just got back from a bike ride!

Rode down to the beach and had a shandy while watching the sunset!

1) My ass hurts (got padded shorts)
2) Occationally I hear the disk 'scrape' even though i'm not holding the brake - what could this be?
3) In certain gears the chain can be heard rubbing rubbing on the large cog changer. It's really hard to explain as I don't know the terms. Look at this example picture, when the gears on the left are on the hardest (highest?) setting, the gears on the right 'rub' against the changer.
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4) On the little cog, to change to harder gears its the small lever and to change down its the big lever on the right hand gears.
On the big cog, to change to harder gears its the big lever and to change down its the little lever on the left hand gears. Again is this normal or should they both be the same?
5) To change the gears on the right stick (little cogs) its really easy, just click click click. To change gears on the left hand side (the 2 big cogs) i REALLY have to push quite hard, and even 'hold it' for a few seconds while the change latches on - is this normal?

Does this bike just need bedding in? Should I mess around with it? Should I try find a bike shop to give it a service even though its only 1 day old?


edit: Enjoy my potato style explanation
 
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Part of this is just getting used to it, part of this is decent shorts, part of this is a decent saddle. Finding the right saddle can be very tricky.
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Ouch my Gooch :p

If you're in the small ring at the front and the small gears at the back then it likely will rub. You typically use big front/small back or small front/big back and then there's some crossover in the middle, but at the extremes some rubbing is normal.
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Ok makes sense, I wasn't aware that this could be a 'thing'.

It's normal. The big lever tightens the cable, the little lever releases it. The tighter the cable at the front, the bigger - harder - gear you're in. The tighter the cable at the rear, the bigger - easier - gear you're in. It's doubly confusing because a big ring at the front is hard work, but a big ring at the back is easier. Does that make sense?
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Yup makes sense I think. If I had got it from a bike shop I wouldn't mention it but as its from 'you know where' i'm a bit more wary.

Yes and no. The rear derailleur only has to move a tiny distance between each of the cogs and it's indexed in such a way that it pings very neatly from one gear to the next. The front derailleur has to move a greater distance, and it's almost certainly just a friction shift (assuming you have a double, rather than a triple?) so it's basically just a case of needing to shift the derailleur until it's in the right spot rather than it having a place to click into like the rear derailleur. It could be that it needs adjusting a bit, depending on which way it's tricky, and it could be to do with the limits or the cable tension, but in general terms yes - the front derailleur is not as precise an affair as the rear one. I assume, however, that shifting down to the small ring at the front is easy, but that shifting up is hard? Shifting down is just about releasing the cable and it should twang free with quite a noise and move fairly quickly. Shifting up is the harder end of things, because the cable has to be pulled quite a way to move the derailleur out and the chain up to the big ring.
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It's only 2 cogs not 3. When shifting from big > little its an easy flick and hold for a second. When shifting from little > big its a push quite far and hold hard for 3~seconds.


It depends on how confident you are, and how handy you are with the spanners generally. The Park Tool website has excellent explanations of these things, and it doesn't take too much in the way of tools, so it is doable. However, if you're new to it and not confident, then it mightn't hurt to take it into a shop and ask them to just check it over. If you tell them it's from Halfords and offer to buy a few bits and bobs from them then they might just give you the 5 minutes it'll take for them to fix it for free. Or maybe find a mate who knows what they're doing bikewise?
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I'm thinking I just leave it for now, then after a few weeks when you can take it back to Halfords for an inspection, I will just go straight to an independent?.

Hey, we all started somewhere. The big cogs at the front are usually referred to as the chainrings or rings. The small cogs at the back are usually called sprockets or cogs. Gears is used to refer to all sorts of things, though really it means any particular combination of sprockets. The thing that moves the chain is called a derailleur or mech. It's usual to refer to the mechs as front - being the one at the pedals - and rear - being the one at the wheel.
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Awesome reply thanks for your help!

FrenchTart said:
Further to Von's post:

2) This is normal, especially with mechanical discs. You may be able to resolve it by adjusting your disc pads but it's not worth it. Unless it's absolutely constant and you feel like your brakes are slightly engaged I'd ignore it.

The rest - It wasn't that long ago that I was posting very similar questions to you. Don't worry about it :) The bike doesn't sound like it's set up that badly but I would certainly get a service in a few weeks or a couple of hundred miles, whichever is sooner.
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As the wheel turns I hear it rub on just a small part of the disc, 'tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tss'. Not the whole disc, just one little bit.

Once again...ow...my undercarriage is sore :p
 
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When braking last night I was using roughly 70%~ back brake 30%~ front brake!

When I was younger I slammed the front brake on too hard and inevitably went flying over the handle bars, smashed my face into a railing and had the bike slam against my tail bone (ouch!). I wonder if thats the reason for me using mostly back brake :D


edit: Would it be wrong to sit on an icepack at work? ;)
 
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