Where to start?

[Andy in Germany]

I happily commute in my work clothes and toe-capped boots, and haven't worn a helmet in years; As others have said, cycling clothes aren't a must, al least not yet. Learning how to maintain the bike and swapping out the tyres is probably the most important thing now: working brakes are generally healthy.

Once you know specifically what you need to repair (posting pictures here and asking "what is this called?" works for me) YouTube is very helpful.

As others have said, have fun riding and enjoy. You'll get all kinds of conflicting advice @sleuthey would take mudguards and rack off, which can be a good idea, personally I fit a rack and mudguards onto every bike I get hold of. A colleague at work thinks I'm nuts and rides a 2 grand full suspension monster. That's the joy of cycling: it's as individual as you are.

 

[biggs682]

@chrismisterx first of all welcome and secondly well done to you for not going out and buying 2 shiny new bikes and then leaving them in the shed . I would go and introduce your self to your local bike shop and ask his advice on what he thinks needs doing to make them safe to use and then decide what you can do and can't do .

There might be a cycle chat member who is local to you and would be prepared to help / show you what needs doing

Any way have fun and keep us updated

 

[alicat]

Welcome to the forum! Your bikes are perfect for the riding you are going to do. Enjoy your outings in such a nice part of the country.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

Welcome to the forum! Your bikes are perfect for the riding you are going to do. Enjoy your outings in such a nice part of the country.

This!

I've seen your other posting about getting new "do everything" bikes, so my advice is to slow down..... metaphorically and literally!

Get your brakes seen to!

Seriously!

If you know someone who is handy with bikes get them to give them both a once-over and tell you what's good and what's not.
If you don't know anyone, you've got 2 choices;
1. DIY
2. Shop.
The problem with a shop is that they'll likely try to sell you new bikes.

If you've no bike mechanical experience, fear not! It really is not as intimidating as it seems at the start.
I speak from the experience of someone who struggled to fix a puncture.
Start with one thing at a time eg the brakes or tyres. As said before, youtube is your friend. Study it. Do it. Perfect it. Then use the confidence and experience to move on to the next thing.

Believe it or not, you're way ahead of a lot of people - you have bikes, you've been out on them and you have big plans to do a lot more on them.

Despite all the marketing information, most bikes are very versatile and can do many things. At the end of the day, the components in your head are far more important than the components on the bike.

Fix your brakes, check out your tubes and tyres and enjoy whatever cycling you do.
Over time you'll figure out what works for you and your wife and you can make decisions further down the road as to what is important.

Right now, the most important thing is to be safe and to enjoy what you're doing.
You're half way there

 

[Bazzer]

There is nothing wrong with having an old bike. One of mine is over 30 years old and there are many on here who ride even older bikes.
I would say the first thing is to make sure your bike can be ridden safely. Damaged tyre sidewalls isn't good, neither is an inability to stop. An off or a crash may damage confidence as well as physically, so they need to be sorted. If you are confident spannering, as said upthread, Youtube has plenty of how to videos. If you are not confident spannering, or at least not yet, then I'd suggest speaking with your local bike shop (not Halfords). They can give them a look over and fix the immediate safety issues. The cost of the repairs may be more than you paid for the bikes, but at least the bikes should leave the shop in a safe condition for you to learn to enjoy and may be for some jobs, to fix yourselves.

 

[Brandane]

I have a friend who is throwing away two mountain bikes both have some damage he says, could I strip parts from them to use on this bike ( one bike has disc brakes he says ) could I swap out the disc brakes from that bike to this one?

Short answer re the disc brakes, is highly unlikely.... Your current bike would have to have the mounting points on the front fork and rear frame for the brake calipers. Then you would need wheels with the mounting points for the discs (as MTB wheels tend to be 26" they wouldn't be transferable to your bike, assuming it has normal road bike wheels fitted); plus the axle width is wider on disc braked wheels IIRC, to take the extra width of the disc mountings...

 

[chrismisterx]

This!

I've seen your other posting about getting new "do everything" bikes, so my advice is to slow down..... metaphorically and literally!

Yea, really excited and wanting to start planning for the next bikes, so much to learn so don't want to rush into a mistake.

Little update :-

Took the bike out for the first "long" trip this afternoon and when I say long I mean long for me

Did 20 miles along the coast from North shields to Seaton Sluice and back, before today all we did was a couple of miles around the block / wagon ways to learn test things.

So I took your advice and tried to check what worked and didn't work, down hill was a beast, couple of steep drops with no real brakes, tires were soft half way around, so must be losing air, gears didn't work no matter what I tried, pretty much confirmed everything i said before, but the ride even though the tires were soft was still enjoyable and even with only a couple of middle gears I think I did ok, yes a few hills beat me and my speed was slow I think ( my phone app said I managed an avg of just under 10 miles an hour.

With all this in mind I decided to pop to the local bike shop in Tynemouth for a chat and some advice. What a lovely couple of people I meet, really helpful.

He did a quick check of the bike and it seems the frame and such is in really good nick, he advised me that these type of bikes from the past just dont break that often and said it would be fine to fix up, just depended on how much I wanted to spend.

So put it in for a service and repair. Two new sets of brakes, he said the ones on are from when the bike was built in 1993 no wonder they dont work anymore! Gears are fine, just need reset. Getting 2 new tires some level 5 puncture ones, cant remember the make, but they should be good for road and off road. 2 new inner tubes for good measure. All and All £70, get the bike back next tuesday.

£70 for the new parts + £12.50 for the bike at £82.50 I cant complain for a working safe bike.

Going to take the advice here and use this bike for a few months, until I work out what I need next and can save up, maybe replace the seat later on as its a little damaged but for the time been got given a seat cover thats padded that covers the torn bit.

really looking forward to redoing the route I did today to see the difference since the repairs.

Next on the list, repair kit, lights and some bags for the bike I think oh and some winter clothes.

thanks again for the advice, really really helpful.

 

[snorri]

I think it was a good move to have your bike fixed professionally. Now you just have to maintain it by keeping a check on brakes, tyres, gears etc..
It will make your cycling much easier if you keep your tyres inflated to the recommended pressures. This is best done at home with a Track Pump as opposed to the smaller pump you carry for emergencies when out and about. There is a vast range of Track Pumps, if you feel you can afford one , it will be money well spent.
Just type 'cycle track pumps' into a search engine.

 

[Brandane]

for the time been got given a seat cover thats padded that covers the torn bit.

Beware the padded saddle cover! Or padded saddle for that matter. Again, it's a subject regularly covered in here. Padded may sound best, but can actually cause more chaffing and ultimately be much MORE uncomfortable than a seemingly hard saddle like a Brooks. It's a minefield as we all have different shaped backsides and all spend different lengths of time in the saddle. It's a matter of researching and trial and error. Just don't let your opinion be clouded by the belief that padding means comfort - it might be the opposite.

 

[chrismisterx]

Beware the padded saddle cover! Or padded saddle for that matter. Again, it's a subject regularly covered in here. Padded may sound best, but can actually cause more chaffing and ultimately be much MORE uncomfortable than a seemingly hard saddle like a Brooks. It's a minefield as we all have different shaped backsides and all spend different lengths of time in the saddle. It's a matter of researching and trial and error. Just don't let your opinion be clouded by the belief that padding means comfort - it might be the opposite.

Right I see, so better to just swap out the damaged saddle for a new one and dump the cover. thanks for the heads up!

 

[Bazzer]

Right I see, so better to just swap out the damaged saddle for a new one and dump the cover. thanks for the heads up!

To try to save wasting money on a completely inappropriate saddle, your local bike shop may have a device for measuring your sit bones: sometimes referred to as an arseometer. That may give you some indication of the size of saddle to go for. Still no guarantee it will be comfortable, but at least gives you a starting point.

 

[nickyboy]

Yea, really excited and wanting to start planning for the next bikes, so much to learn so don't want to rush into a mistake.

Little update :-

Took the bike out for the first "long" trip this afternoon and when I say long I mean long for me

Did 20 miles along the coast from North shields to Seaton Sluice and back, before today all we did was a couple of miles around the block / wagon ways to learn test things.

So I took your advice and tried to check what worked and didn't work, down hill was a beast, couple of steep drops with no real brakes, tires were soft half way around, so must be losing air, gears didn't work no matter what I tried, pretty much confirmed everything i said before, but the ride even though the tires were soft was still enjoyable and even with only a couple of middle gears I think I did ok, yes a few hills beat me and my speed was slow I think ( my phone app said I managed an avg of just under 10 miles an hour.

With all this in mind I decided to pop to the local bike shop in Tynemouth for a chat and some advice. What a lovely couple of people I meet, really helpful.

He did a quick check of the bike and it seems the frame and such is in really good nick, he advised me that these type of bikes from the past just dont break that often and said it would be fine to fix up, just depended on how much I wanted to spend.

So put it in for a service and repair. Two new sets of brakes, he said the ones on are from when the bike was built in 1993 no wonder they dont work anymore! Gears are fine, just need reset. Getting 2 new tires some level 5 puncture ones, cant remember the make, but they should be good for road and off road. 2 new inner tubes for good measure. All and All £70, get the bike back next tuesday.

£70 for the new parts + £12.50 for the bike at £82.50 I cant complain for a working safe bike.

Going to take the advice here and use this bike for a few months, until I work out what I need next and can save up, maybe replace the seat later on as its a little damaged but for the time been got given a seat cover thats padded that covers the torn bit.

really looking forward to redoing the route I did today to see the difference since the repairs.

Next on the list, repair kit, lights and some bags for the bike I think oh and some winter clothes.

thanks again for the advice, really really helpful.

That's a very sensible approach

I'm all for not overspending on bike bits but tyres and brakes are kinda important. You can get away with all sorts but it's a good idea to have these in sound working order

I'd still learn how to fix a puncture at home pretty soon. You'll have one eventually and sods law it'll be middle of nowhere on a cold day. Having had a practice you'll be able to handle it no problem

 

[alicat]

Good move re the local bike shop, @chrismisterx. Looking forward to the update when you get it back.

 

[Geoffers]

Regarding track pumps and other peripheral kit ... keep an eye on Aldi & Lidl. They will both occasionally have a pile of bike kit in stock. It's not the best stuff but, crucially, it's not complete rubbish either. And it's cheap. Well worth looking out for if you're on a budget.

 

[Ticktockmy]

Before going for your next "Long Ride" I would purchase a small pump and puncture kit (poundland pumps work ok), and practise at home, removing and replacing and repairing the punture in the inner tube. because sods law says that the puncture fairy will strike at the furthest point from home.