Newbie to boards cycling forum looking for some advice

colm_gti

Firstly hello all, I've been commuting by bike since September, and more recently taking a few longer weekend spins, with a view to attempt a triathlon or two in the coming months, having given up playing rugby and looking for a new way to challenge myself.

I have a Giant OCR2 6000 series, identical to this one apart from it being a large frame, that I bought used from a friend that works in the bike hub in Howth.

The bike has been great so far, I'd say I've put up about 2k km on it with no issues bar the odd flat tyre. I recently got it serviced, all new gear cables and brake cables, brake pads, bottom bracket bearing and new rear wheel hub, and it was running fantastically after the service, shifting very crisply into all gears. I was told that I'd need to get the gears indexed after a few spins because the cables would naturally stretch a little. The shifts had gotten less crisp over the past week so I dropped into the bike shop where I study (UCD) to get this done thinking it would be a short job, but it turns out the shifter for my front derailleur, an older model tiagra shifter, may be on its last legs and won't shift to the large ring on the cassette, and I may need new shifters.

Now my predicament is, and I welcome your opinions, do I put some money into my current bike and make it a bit fresher for the commuting, long spins and hopefully competing I'm aiming for (new better groupset, saddle and wheels), or do I just sell the bike I currently have and look into upgrading to something a bit more upmarket?

Bear in mind I'm a student, so won't have huge amounts of money to drop on a bike, maybe ~€700 plus whatever I get for mine, and also the bike will be tied up outside in UCD all day. Also, having a commuter and weekend bike isn't exactly an option I have right now either due to storage restrictions.

Your opinions will be very much welcomed,
Colm

victorcarrera

A more expensive commuter is more likely to be nicked.
If you are only starting to do triathlons now you won't be competing with the big guns so better to stick with what you have, compete against the clock and monitor your progress for now.
Get a second opinion on the tiagra shifter. It might be a rear mech adjustment, or a sticky cable outer.
If cash is tight at the moment I would just prove and replace the shifter with a second hand one and get a set of removable tri bars.

lescol

If you spray wd40 through the left shifter then shift up/down a few times it should resolve the problem:)

I have a Tiagra equiped bike from 1999 which still has the original shifters. They get a bit "gunged up" and won't quite click to enable the shift into the big ring, the wash through should sort it out.

colm_gti

victorcarrera wrote: »

A more expensive commuter is more likely to be nicked.
If you are only starting to do triathlons now you won't be competing with the big guns so better to stick with what you have, compete against the clock and monitor your progress for now.
Get a second opinion on the tiagra shifter. It might be a rear mech adjustment, or a sticky cable outer.
If cash is tight at the moment I would just prove and replace the shifter with a second hand one and get a set of removable tri bars.

lescol wrote: »

If you spray wd40 through the left shifter then shift up/down a few times it should resolve the problem:)

I have a Tiagra equiped bike from 1999 which still has the original shifters. They get a bit "gunged up" and won't quite click to enable the shift into the big ring, the wash through should sort it out.

Thanks lads, I should have said I'm getting the mechanic I would usually go to to take a look at them this evening, so hopefully it's an easy fix. The mechanic in the UCD shop did wash them through with wd40 though and said much the same as you lescol, although they still don't seem to be grabbing gears very well.

Plastik

Good bike in the bedroom, beater locked up somewhere as secure as possible outside?

Or move house!