Ok, so I've been riding for a while now, but entirely on a MTB, but I've been thinking of buying a road bike, mostly because I wanted one, a hybrid would more than suffice for the riding I do.
Anyway, rather than go out an buy a shiny new bike I wanted to be sure that I'd actually enjoy riding the thing, so I ended up punting for a Peugeot on ebay. My thinking being if I liked it I could clean it up and use it as a beater until I get a more modern bike. Suffice it to say it arrived today and I've noticed a few problems, mechanically and geometry wise.
First thing that I noticed is that the top tube and seat tube appear to be equal lengths, checking this with the diagonal tube linking them indicates that is the same too, is this normal? Also the bike feels much smaller than an MTB, with similar downtube size, again is this normal?
Secondly, and which I assumed would be the case, nothing was setup correctly, the brakes were loose, and in the case of the front brake, non-functional, the rear derailleur (these are friction gears btw) became disconnected when I tried changing them.
I spent a little time getting them up and working, the brakes work well enough on the 700c wheels, although I needed to replace the rear tube, as it exploded about 2 minutes after pumping it up.
Anyway to the meat of my queries, first of all the rear wheel has QR skewers fitted, but after removing the wheel to replace the inner tube, I found the axle too wide for the frame (120mm), and had to apply a lot of force to get the rear wheel into the frame. Then, when tightening up the QR, I realised that the QR was actually tightening from the off-side, and the thread was poking several mm beyond the edge. This led to the more major concern, whilst riding the bike around the car park, the rear wheel dislodged and jammed against one of the stays causing immobility.
I'm guessing that this is likely to be a consequence of the axle? Is there a simple way to resolve this without involving the LBS? I'd rather not spend too much more money on it at this stage if possible.
Anyway, rather than go out an buy a shiny new bike I wanted to be sure that I'd actually enjoy riding the thing, so I ended up punting for a Peugeot on ebay. My thinking being if I liked it I could clean it up and use it as a beater until I get a more modern bike. Suffice it to say it arrived today and I've noticed a few problems, mechanically and geometry wise.
First thing that I noticed is that the top tube and seat tube appear to be equal lengths, checking this with the diagonal tube linking them indicates that is the same too, is this normal? Also the bike feels much smaller than an MTB, with similar downtube size, again is this normal?
Secondly, and which I assumed would be the case, nothing was setup correctly, the brakes were loose, and in the case of the front brake, non-functional, the rear derailleur (these are friction gears btw) became disconnected when I tried changing them.
I spent a little time getting them up and working, the brakes work well enough on the 700c wheels, although I needed to replace the rear tube, as it exploded about 2 minutes after pumping it up.
Anyway to the meat of my queries, first of all the rear wheel has QR skewers fitted, but after removing the wheel to replace the inner tube, I found the axle too wide for the frame (120mm), and had to apply a lot of force to get the rear wheel into the frame. Then, when tightening up the QR, I realised that the QR was actually tightening from the off-side, and the thread was poking several mm beyond the edge. This led to the more major concern, whilst riding the bike around the car park, the rear wheel dislodged and jammed against one of the stays causing immobility.
I'm guessing that this is likely to be a consequence of the axle? Is there a simple way to resolve this without involving the LBS? I'd rather not spend too much more money on it at this stage if possible.