Advice on doing up secondhand bike

WilcoYHF

Evening All,

I was given a Giant OCR (excluding wheels) by a colleague, delighted to finally have a road bike!! Not sure how old it is but its being lying idle for a while so I'm gonna get it a good service. I was looking at Harrys Bikes in Clonskeagh, I was in there at the wknd and it looked impressive. Has anyone had any experience with this shop??

They offer a "Professional Service" for €120:

Strip down and re-build face, all frame points
Realign bottom bracket
Full service and re grease
Bar tape fitting

Is this a good deal?

Bigus

I thinki I'd put the 120 towards the new wheels and tinker around with it myself after a few runs. Bike aren't complicated enought to require servicing IMHO . A bit of grease and adjustment and off you go.

smacl

I'm with Bigus, if you've no wheels on the bike, you're going to need wheels, tyres, tubes, and a cassette as a bar minimum. Personally, if I was buying all this, I'd also tend to pick up a new chain as well, and possibly cables depending on there condition.

Something like

RS10 Wheels €109
2 x Durano tyres €36
4 x tubes €20 (always clever to have some spares)
Don't know if you need a 8,9 or 10 speed cassette, I'll guess 9 but you need to check
Cassette €20

Shipping of that lot ~ €30 for oversized stuff

So about €215 to get reasonably decent entry level wheels / tyres / casette, without looking at tools or other potential requirements like new chain, cables, brake pads, etc... You regularly see wheel sets with cassettes on the adverts section here so second hand might be an option.

No point on getting a fancy service on a bike with no wheels. Get some wheels, get the bike running at a very basic level, and then get it serviced. If you like the lads in Clonskeagh, get them to give you a price to get what you have on the road. They might also have a 2nd hand set of wheels etc... to get you going, and if they don't ring around the other local bike shops to see what they can do for you. Based on entry level 2nd hand stuff, I'm sure one of them would get you on the road for €200.

smacl

Or if you're around Enniscorthy; http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80769965#post80769965

WilcoYHF

Yes wheels were top of the list! Seeing as I got the bike for nothing I'm gonna send around €1000 on bits and peices. I was looking at around €200 on wheels, tubes and tyres.

After that I was hoping on getting a team kit, shoes, a few tools and cleaning kit with a Garmin Edge to top it off!

I can see that €1000 going veeerrrrrryyyyyy quickly!

Lambretta

I have bought a new bike and dropped other bikes into Harry's bikes for servicing and found them gentlemen to deal with and with good technical knowledge and old school customer service. They will not push the most expensive items on you and unlike some other bikes stores will spend time with you answering all questions and giving advice. I have no connection with them whatsover.

thebouldwhacker

Stop.

If you have €1000 to spend put it on a new bike. Do not spend it on this free bike, you will regret it.
Fix it up if you want and have it as a second bike for hacking around on.

Seaneh

WilcoYHF wrote: »

Yes wheels were top of the list! Seeing as I got the bike for nothing I'm gonna send around €1000 on bits and peices. I was looking at around €200 on wheels, tubes and tyres.

After that I was hoping on getting a team kit, shoes, a few tools and cleaning kit with a Garmin Edge to top it off!

I can see that €1000 going veeerrrrrryyyyyy quickly!

If you are willing to drop a grand on a bike save yourself some heartache and just buy something like this... Or wait for the new Canyon Roadlite 6.0's to be in stock.



Or if you have a bike to work entitlement you could get this and have change form your €1000 from the shop in Athlone.

Might be easier as you could travel there and try a few frame sizes and see which suits.