Hello from it's not sure if it wants to rain or not Derbyshire.

[Learnincurve]

Yay we made it. As predicted there was much whining on the way home and a outright refusal to smile for the camera. I got to practice a bit stop starting with her catching up, was wobbly to begin with but managed to get better over time.

Important bit: The bike this is a first impressions review, I'll do a proper one when I've been out on it more than once. You can tell it's not a £600 bike, everything that is metal is perfectly fine, anything that isn't metal is a bit cheap but replaceable. It's things like the brakes, not so much the mechanism but the handles, and the pedals.
The brakes themselves work well, I was in perfect testing conditions for them (the rain and on gravel, smooth tarmac and potholes). I can't tell you how the gears compare to a 18 gear bike because the bike I had before this had 3, this has 6. It's also the first time I have used one where you have the gears on the handlebars and it was a revolution for me.
It was perfectly fine on the flat, downhill and you don't really notice small inclines. I had problems with the stupidly steep bits we have here (it's either slight hill or mountainous, pick one) but I don't know if was a PEBSAH error or not (problem exists between seat and handlebars).
Weight was fine it's 15.7kg but some of that will be the mudguards and chain cover thingie, which I'm very glad I had, you can see the crud on the chain guard and that has already been wiped off once.
The seat is bouncy and absorbs some of the road but as you can see I immediately put a gel cover on it, it's actually fine without, it was just better with, also it's white so...
The handle and riding position was odd but actually very comfy. The tires are 1.5 and you can see from the picture grippy round the outside and smooth in the middle.
Size. I'm 5"5 and 16" fit me fine, there seems to be a lot of leeway with heights both tall and short.

Would I take it off road? Nope. I suspect the frame, guards and wheels would be fine but anything too rugged is going to break or cause too much wear to the breaks/gears. It is however very much at home on a tow path and this was in the wet as well. I can't tell you how it handles the road in the dry but again it coped with the wet.

Summery. It's a proper hybrid, not a road bike that they have stuck flat handles on.

As for Halfords. I got the youth that really knew what he was doing, thankfully, his friend seemed somewhat less competent. I do have some accessories to fit to the bike, pump, lights and repair kit (not bought from halfords) but he was lovely enough to put the slime in my tires for me while I was there.