So you think about buying a new bicycle? You wish to get a reliable means of transport? And you prefer to spend as little money as possible during the service life of your new bicycle? Here are the steps that will make your rides safer and allow you to pay less in the long term.
Get your new bicycle built by a qualified mechanic
That is rule number one as most of the future problems originate from bicycle being built by someone who has very little experience or just does not care about getting things right (it is common even for established bicycle shops to just unbox the bike, fit the pedals, the front wheel, and “voila!”).
These issues can be quite expensive and are not covered by warranty (they actually are nevertheless it is left up to you to prove that the person who put the bike together did the job badly). They will try to tell you that the parts have to “bed in” to start working properly, and that any issues will be sorted later.
That is true, most of the parts have to bed-in before they can be re-adjusted for a long term but, imperatively, they MUST bed-in being in the correct position from the very beginning. If the parts like wheel hubs, bottom brackets, headsets, brakes, etc. are misaligned when new, the person doing after-sales service has usually two choices – either replace said parts that can easily show damages even after 50-100 miles, or leave it as it is. You can guess what is going to happen.
Request the name of the mechanic who built your new bicycle
Let the shop to write the name of the person who built your new bicycle onto your receipt. Next time you bring your bike for after-sales service, ask for the same person to perform the task. You will not only get the mechanic pleased, they will also give your bike more attention. As for the after-sales service itself, it is very important that you bring the bike for the service within the stated period because it can have big impact on your warranty, in some cases even voiding it on the grounds of neglected maintenance and misuse.
For bikes priced less than £250 – get the bike fully serviced once again after 2 months from after-sales service. It will set you back by no more than £30 including some parts but, by my experience, this roughly doubles the bike’s life-span. Get it done by the same mechanic who built the bike originally – do not let different people messing with your bike. This approach has sometimes unseen consequences as if something goes wrong because of misalignment, you will have just one person to blame.
Get your bicycle checked at regular intervals
I would suggest getting your bike checked regularly, once before and once after winter period, even if you do not feel any issues with it. Just pop into the shop, let them check the brakes, transmissions, wheels, tyres and few other parts. This check takes 4-5 minutes, it is usually free of charge and people who do it have good sense for spotting even future problems.
You will get probably recommendations what to get fixed together with an estimated cost – it is totally up to you to say “go ahead”. Again, this is the time to demand that the mechanic who built your bicycle should check it and report any findings to you. The reason why to do this is simple, nearly 60% of repairs taken directly on the shop floor are under- or over-estimated, which means you either pay more than necessary or do not get your bike fully fixed. Again, let your mechanic ONLY to do the whole job.
Do not attempt to do anything more complicated than changing tube/tyre
Bikes are sensitive machines, anything you do might have adversely affected other parts (even if you change the tube only you may have seated tyre or wheel wrongly which leads to tyre being damaged by brake blocks). Of course, if you are the person who knows everything, go ahead but let your mechanic check the bike before you take it on public roads, please.