General / Off-Topic Need advice from any experienced cyclists here.

[Deleted member 115407]

helmet? that's for the really rough terrain.
my advice? Learn how to not fall / fall without getting into hospital.

Sorry, Minonian, going to have to disagree with you, here. A cautionary tale...

One day, at the age of 18, I decided to stop by my good friend, Brent's house. Cool kid, a bit of a rebel, like myself and all of my friends, but still a good kid. Thing is, when I drive up, his sisters are out in the front yard and are visibly upset. Turns out that Brent, 17, is in the hospital in a coma. Know why? He fell off of his skateboard and hit his head.

Brent was what? 5'8"? And skateboard has a clearance of about 4 inches? So a fall of six feet, with direct impact, resulted in his parents having to unplug him three days later.

About two years later I had a bike accident wherein I flipped over my handlebars and landed square on my head. An off duty fireman was driving by. I was wearing a helmet and was shaken, but unhurt. The fireman attributed my lack of serious injury to my helmet. My uncle wasn't wearing a helmet. The fireman offered to personally pay for a helmet if my uncle would wear it.

If I recall correctly, the fireman looked like this...

Spoiler

When my ex and I started riding together, I refused to ride with her unless she wore a helmet.

$25. That's like what, £15? That £15 could very easily mean the difference between life and death.

I don't care if you're going 10 mph on a flat roadway (which is how fast I was going, btw). Wear a goddamn helmet.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I agree with the need for a helmet. Its' job is very simple; protect your head. My godsons were not convinced helmets were a good idea (one said it would spoil his hair, for ***** sake!). I bought two water melons, and a cheap helmet. We then went out to a pavement with a decent kerb. I dropped one water melon from 5 feet high (the height of the elder godson) onto the kerbstone, and it split badly. I then dropped the other (it was wearing the cheap helmet) from 5 feet again (helmet was down), and while the helmet was damaged (I knew I would write it off) the melon was undamaged. Now they both wear helmets.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Does anyone here have any opinions on the "Carrera" brand?

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Does anyone here have any opinions on the "Carrera" brand?

No personal experience, but a google search shows some good reviews.

 

[Ashnak]

No idea about "Carrera" brand, but the duck has made some very good points.

Also cyclist here, I don't own car (since around 2000) any more (but still have a licence and am a member of the local car sharing - and work for an automotive OEM ;-) ). Commuting around 6000 km/year.

Too late to add much here, but still:
- doggy trailer is a good idea, definitely so if your dog is above lapdog size, anything over 5 kg that moves around in a basket (front or rear) is really hard to handle
- while i'm fully behind the idea of a Brooks saddle, I'll have to disagree with the B17, though. Make it a C17 . But seriously - since you have a limited budget, forget about Brooks, these saddles will cost you half your budget
- no idea about your actual weight (haven't seen the numbers in this thread, and anyways british units won't make sense to me...), but if you're that heavily overweight, you'll have a hard time finding a decent bike in (or anything at all) in your price range; most regular bikes are limited to 100...125 kg rider including everything else

Oh, and I should know what I'm talking about - 110 kg here. And in my experience (sorry to dissappoint you there) cardio activity like cycling or swimming won't help you with losing weight. You will gain fitness, and maybe transfer some of the weight from fat to muscles, but for overall actually losing weight - at least I can't seem to manage.

Get your bike from a local bike shop - that's probably the most important thing. A real bike shop (I know you have them in the UK) in which, if necessary, you can either punch or (better) donate some coffee to the mechanic, not Halford's or something similar. Brand is unimportant in that price range - the only noteable difference will be the colour of the sticker.
Next, learn how to do the basic maintenance by yourself.
Even better would be (if you have the mechanical aptitude) if you also could do moderatley advanced maintenance yourself, like lacing and trueing a wheel (which will be important at your weight - off-the-shelf wheels are ususally pretty badly tensioned, since manually tensioning a wheel is pretty time consuming, also for a pro, and therefore expensive). If you can manage to (re-)tension properly the wheels of your new bike, you may be able to add several years to the lifetime of the wheels. The best online source for this is Sheldon Brown's website: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/ , the best offline source Jobst Brandt "The Bicycle Wheel" https://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Wheel-3rd-Jobst-Brandt/dp/0960723668 . All you actually need for that is a proper spoke key (I'd recommend the "Spokey") and, at the start, a lot of patience. If you do your first wheel in less than two hours, you botched it

As for the actual riding - always remember that, as a cyclist, you are the driver of a vehicle, with all the rights and duties associated with it. Cars have neither more nor less rights than you on your bike (with the exception of limited access roads).

 

[Deleted member 110222]

No personal experience, but a google search shows some good reviews.

Yeah, it's the brand my best mate's bike is. Also some of the richer kids at college had them. They loved them.

I think I'll opt for this make. Everything I can find is good, and the price is reasonable.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I have decided to go bald for this. Shaving head on Monday.

RIP

 

[verminstar]

I used to be very heavily into mountain biking...not gonna be much ye get fer 250 notes in that game, so not sure how any advice would be useful. My front wheel cost more than 250 notes and the original sale price was a shade under 4 grand...

Its fer sale if yer interested?

Anyway...yeah welcome to the world of cycling...where men who shave their legs are normal and scars become badges of honour ^

 

[lokvette]

I was a despatch rider in London for eight years back in my 20's, used to cover well over fitty miles a day, rode fixed wheel, one brake,light frame, etc. Best eight years of my life the freedom you get from cycling is one I still miss to this day, saying that I also lost the curvature of my lower spine, which has lead to serious back trouble later in life, and my left knee is shot. I cant ride and haven't ridden a bike for a long time now.

But with today's bikes, ie full suspension those things shouldn't be as bad as there were, plus the gear ratio I ran was rather large not as big as you see on the guys at the olympics but close, and I was super fit, the only thing I found that diddnt really get a good work out from it was my stomach. So yeah for me cycling was not only a way to make a living it was something I was doing since I could ride a bike, great form of excise and so much fun.

I would highly recommend a helmet and a camera fitted to it, its a sad state of affairs but the way traffic is now and how careless drivers are...

 

[verminstar]

I was a despatch rider in London for eight years back in my 20's, used to cover well over fitty miles a day, rode fixed wheel, one brake,light frame, etc. Best eight years of my life the freedom you get from cycling is one I still miss to this day, saying that I also lost the curvature of my lower spine, which has lead to serious back trouble later in life, and my left knee is shot. I cant ride and haven't ridden a bike for a long time now.

But with today's bikes, ie full suspension those things shouldn't be as bad as there were, plus the gear ratio I ran was rather large not as big as you see on the guys at the olympics but close, and I was super fit, the only thing I found that diddnt really get a good work out from it was my stomach. So yeah for me cycling was not only a way to make a living it was something I was doing since I could ride a bike, great form of excise and so much fun.

I would highly recommend a helmet and a camera fitted to it, its a sad state of affairs but the way traffic is now and how careless drivers are...

Sorry to hear yer reasons fer not being able to partake...personally, I was diagnosed with MS 2 and half years ago, so thats my excuse. That brought a quarter century sport crashing to a halt.

Still wouldnt recommend full suspension unless ye have a few more pennies to throw at them...when I was last in the scene, it was a given that anything less than 750 quid would only get ye very basic performance quality. On the really cheap examples, the ride itself is worse than riding a hardtail...those are aimed at kids who want the image more than anything else and ddnt know any better.

If yer on a tight budget, then get a wee hardtail bike and learn how to ride on that...full suspension merely allows ye to take risks and make mistakes, although short travel forks help take the sting out of the front. If ye dont know bikes that well then just bear in mind that more moving parts means more chance of something failing.

And get a helmet...one that fits properly. Skulls dont bounce that well off tarmac and if ye ride a bike at all, then sooner or later yer gonna crash ^

 

[timbero]

Biking is an execellent activity, just don't burn yourself out by seeing it as a chore.

Use it to travel around and have fun, going to shops, school, work, exploring etc. If you get a good light to put on there you can have some fun at night too.

Once you get a bit more comfortable and experienced you will pick up the pace automatically, no rush.

You can go faster and further then by walking, so it's easier and more fun to see new places.

Two things I would recommend is always keeping a good amount of air in the tires, check every now and then so you're not running low. And get a comfortable saddle so it doesn't feel like you're getting probed by an alien every time you use the bike.