Just ordered a new Bicycle.

Reality|Bites · 16 Jun 2008 at 19:52

http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=70319

What about this one? Do I go for L or XL? I have a 34" leg.

Seems like a good shop to buy from

So feel free to link me to other bikes from the shops

fatherdougal · 16 Jun 2008 at 19:53

Buy something appropriate for what you want to do. That bike will be very slow and not very nice to ride to work on. These 'discount' bikes at Halfords are like cheap wine at Tesco and DFS sofas. They are permanently discounted and priced to people who like a bargain and assume that they are getting one.

fatherdougal · 16 Jun 2008 at 19:59

Reality|Bites said:
http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=70319

What about this one? Do I go for L or XL? I have a 34" leg.

Seems like a good shop to buy from

So feel free to link me to other bikes from the shops

If your riding on the road only then why are you looking at Mountain bikes?

http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=86566

I would never buy a bike without checking it for size in the shop. I for instance am 6'2" and have a long body and shorter legs than average. Everyone is different and needs to check out a bike by test riding it for at least 20-30 minutes.

PlatinumFX · 16 Jun 2008 at 20:12

You want the thruth? YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!

In all seriousness, I am going to tell it to you anyway. Do not buy any bike from Halfords unless its made by Dawes, Chris Boardman or some other decent make. Those cheap full sussers and hard tails Halfords push out weigh a tonne, are horrifically inefficient for pedaling not just from the awful suspension but the amount of play in the hubs, frame pivots and bottom bracket. The components wont survive any riding beyond a 2 miles round trip to the shops for a errand or gentle ride in the park twice a week. When things start going wrong (they will), you will be spending 15-40 bob to have them put right. Hell one fix might be 70% of the original value of the bike. At best, you might be problem free for a year. The bottom bracket cups in some of those "bikes" are plastic...

Hopefully enough has been said about those awful machines to sway anyone from buying such a miserable money pit. If your going to be riding just tarmac and tow paths, a hybrid is the way to go.

aslco · 16 Jun 2008 at 20:20

LOL i got my bike for £100 full suspension its had quite a bit of battering and is still fine, seriously spending over £300 on a bike is a big waste IMO unless you really are into your Mountain biking, road cycling or BMX any other bike which will be used for the odd bike ride over a few terrains and it will be fine.

Reality|Bites · 16 Jun 2008 at 20:53

ok it down to these two I think. I'm sticking with the Mountain bikes as I had a look at Hybrids and didn't fancy any of them. Yes I would go faster on the narrower tyres but I prefer the stability of the wider ones

So..

http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=86531

or

http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=87082

Although the saddle on this one looks a bit thin.

SDK^ · 16 Jun 2008 at 21:09

Reality|Bites said:
So..
http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=86531

That has the geometry of a dirt jump bike – not the best for normal riding

I would get this for £250 - http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=86052

Reality|Bites · 16 Jun 2008 at 21:27

ok looks good, I'll go for that one then

thanks.

I'll order it later, the site has slowed down to a crawl for me.

lee32uk · 16 Jun 2008 at 21:43

Dales cycles in Glasgow do some good bikes....0% finance available too if you spend a certain amount

http://www.dalescycles.com/Articles.asp?ID=138

Sweetloaf · 16 Jun 2008 at 22:01

Although I'll admit that I have no idea how good it is yet, I just ordered this for £200:

http://www.bikeoutlet.co.uk/products/Claud_Butler_Stone_River_D2-34-11.html

I'd actually give them a ring and have a chat, they seem to know their stuff

lee32uk · 16 Jun 2008 at 22:10

Sweetloaf said:
Although I'll admit that I have no idea how good it is yet, I just ordered this for £200:

http://www.bikeoutlet.co.uk/products/Claud_Butler_Stone_River_D2-34-11.html

I'd actually give them a ring and have a chat, they seem to know their stuff

You could have bought the Dawes for the same price

Sweetloaf · 16 Jun 2008 at 22:19

lee32uk said:
You could have bought the Dawes for the same price

I could have bought loads of different thing for the same price..but I didn't

Holy cow, almost ten posts in the Sports forum...what the hell is happening to me?

semi-pro waster · 16 Jun 2008 at 23:19

lozzick said:
LOL i got my bike for £100 full suspension its had quite a bit of battering and is still fine, seriously spending over £300 on a bike is a big waste IMO unless you really are into your Mountain biking, road cycling or BMX any other bike which will be used for the odd bike ride over a few terrains and it will be fine.

Without wishing to disillusion you too much, your idea of a battering and that of a proper mountain bikers is probably a bit different. Unless your bike is truly exceptional for £100 there is no way it would stand up to a proper mountain bike course and usage. But that isn't even the main problem with them, even if it holds up there is the simple fact that full suspension at this price level is barely worth anything - you'd get a comparable or better effect from buying bigger, more cushioned tyres and a decent saddle - the bike would weigh less, have less to go wrong and suck up less energy through bobbing.

I do actually agree with you that for most people any bike is better than nothing but I don't like to see full suspension bikes recommended at much less than £300 (and that is still very much bottom of the range). Yes, I guess that is me being a bit of a bike snob but it is also because biking is one of those areas where the "buy cheap, buy twice" adage rings true.

SDK^ · 16 Jun 2008 at 23:34

^ For sure – he speaks some sense.
Shockwave bikes are always at a 'reduced' price, no one does or could sell them at the inflated RRP. They weigh more than the Titanic, have weak frames and the suspension is as useless as a chocolate teapot.

I also just realised that my seat post cost more than his entire bike - lol

aslco · 17 Jun 2008 at 00:16

LOL thats crazy, well im not gunna argue, i dont know much about bikes, but for me it does fine

Hedge · 17 Jun 2008 at 00:46

SDK^ said:
That has the geometry of a dirt jump bike – not the best for normal riding

I would get this for £250 - http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=86052

Thats exactly the bike i was going to recommend from the evans site. seems best at that price

Jonny ///M · 17 Jun 2008 at 02:11

Phone the shop and cancel.....i have to build these absolutely **** bikes! I don't want you becoming another customer coming back complaining his brakes are rubbing.....as the rotors are bent,the fork mounts are put on within no tolerances and the caliper doesn't allow enough adjustment!

For £200 you coulda go a subay 1 for casual on road riding,or even an xc26s(what i usually try to sell them over a shockwave).

Cheap bikes don't take a battering. Glentress on my bighit was quite fun......on my old xile my bottom bracket was absolutely destroyed and the forks broke!

And yeh shockwave are always "half price" when they never were that price to start with. Started off with the Xt900 > 920 > 950 > 980.....same **** different colour basically.

Reality|Bites · 17 Jun 2008 at 14:16

Just looking at the individual components on evans and I was wondering would it be better just to buy a new chain and gear system rather than a full bike?

You see the main reason for me wanting to buy a new bike is due to the fact my gears are nackered. I'm stuck with using gear 2 on the left handle bar because when I select 1 or 3 the chain make a loud scraping sound(bent somewhere?) and on the right handle bar i'm stuck with either gear 4-7. 1-3 cause the bike to make the same scraping sound.
Also the chain is all rusty.

How much would this cost me to repair?

Is it worth my while or should I just get the new one?

Tony Williams · 17 Jun 2008 at 16:33

Reality|Bites said:
Just looking at the individual components on evans and I was wondering would it be better just to buy a new chain and gear system rather than a full bike?

You see the main reason for me wanting to buy a new bike is due to the fact my gears are nackered. I'm stuck with using gear 2 on the left handle bar because when I select 1 or 3 the chain make a loud scraping sound(bent somewhere?) and on the right handle bar i'm stuck with either gear 4-7. 1-3 cause the bike to make the same scraping sound.
Also the chain is all rusty.

How much would this cost me to repair?

Is it worth my while or should I just get the new one?

If that's you only problem, you should just repair it rather than scrap out on a cheap bike. You could take it somewhere and get them to change parts/tune it for you or do it yourself.

You can get away with not having the front gears shifting (1,2,3), as you only need them in extreme cases, I usually leave mine in two and I don't usually need to shift it into 1, sometimes I use 3 when I follow my heart. You should just shift the rear (1-6+) when needed as it handles full load better. BTW front gear 1 should be used with low gears on the back and high with high (ie, you shouldn't have gear 1 back and 6 front) Check out Youtube on derailuer adjustment, maybe it can be fixed easy.

If your chain is rusted then I'd replace it and get some chain oil to prevent it in future.

Maybe rather than spend £100 on a new bike which will hand you MORE problems just patch the exsisting ones with the money ... maybe you can get lights, new brake pads or a fancy horn with leftovers.

chucky · 17 Jun 2008 at 17:33

I worked at halfords, so i know the score with those shockwave bikes.

They will arrive in store, and will be displayed at a stupidly high price for a few weeks (the minimum time allowed before they are reduced legally), and then they will get a 50% price reduction.

They are still far to expensive for what they are even at half price. In saying that, in the few years i worked at halfords there was one or two exceptions where the shockwave bikes where actually decent bikes for the money (note i say for the money - not decent bikes).

The bike we sold the most of was the apollo xc 26 (the most basic model, not the s or the se).

Most of the guys in our shop told people that unless they where prepared to spend £300+ then spending any more than the £70-£80 on the xc 26 was a waste of money.

Its bikes like the shockwave that gives halfords such a bad name. Its technically not possible to get some of the brakes to work, you can make them work better, but they will always grind, and all of the gears will never work.