I posted this before looking for topics, but it kinda ended up being online support for general bicycle troubles.
Which is a good thing! Ask your questions about bicycles that are currently on your mind and we all try to help.
Pre-Emptively calling in @dallasw and @Kissmydadonthelips for their knowledge.
Where can I buy a used bike for a decent price? how do I inspect a used bike, and what to look for? What are the basics of bicycle maintenance?
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Seconding bike coop/collective
Is donating used bikes to a community / co-op bike shop praxis? My wife and I bought used bikes a year or so ago that we’ve since upgraded and I kind of want to give them to something worthwhile instead of selling them.
Yes. My local coop gives away tons of bikes. It rules
Excellent glad to hear it. I’ll bring my extra bikes by there this week.
Craiglist or whatever your local equivalent to that is, basically. Any bike specific used markets will probably not have what you'd consider a decent price if only for the fact that the bicycles are higher quality than what you want or need as a beginner.
Whether it brakes good, it shifts good, it rolls good, the kind of noise it makes and whether it feels wobbly from side to side.
For the braking, shifting and rolling it's better to err on the safe side. If it does this now and then eventually doesn't do one of them, it's usually routine maintenance.
If it doesn't do one of those things when you buy it, it could be anything from routine maintenance to replacing an entire wheel or drivetrain.
So take it for a test drive, basically, that's the most important part.
The perfect bicycle is pretty much noiseless. This is a pipe dream unless you have a team of Tour de France mechanics on hand, but do try to find the source of the noise. If it comes from a part you can see, like the brakes rubbing or the chain rubbing on the front derailleur etc., eeehhhh good chance it can be fixed somewhat easily. If it comes from any of the bearings, good chance they're just fucked.
EDIT: I just realized there is this entire community of people liking loud as fuck freehubs. So to clarify, if you're going fast and not pedaling and it sounds like a stuka bomber plane, this is no cause for concern mechanically.
Some wobblyness front to back could be blamed on suspension, if it has any. If it doesn't and it feels wobbly, stay away. If it feels wobbly from side to side, big no no unless you know what you're doing. It should never do that. I know this isn't precise terms but it's pretty easy to feel it out once you ride it. If you can, maybe ride a few bikes you know are good of friends or a bike shop to get a frame of reference.
Visual check is a given, make sure nothing is rusty and all.
Make sure to try and loosen the parts you will need to loosen eventually. Most important is probably the wheel skewers and the seatpost clamp. If they don't move, you do not want the bicycle.
Flip the thing on it's handlebars, spin the wheels by hand and check if those are wobbly by concentrating on a fixed point on the frame. Again, as a beginner, if it's not straight stay away. Could be fine, could be really bad. While it's flipped, check the underside. It's where rust is often first to accumulate because all the dirt get's there.
Counterintuitively, don't put to much priority on the saddle. Those are very easily changed. If the assfeel isn't great, but the bike fits you in general (look up some online guides on what constitutes a fitting bike), that's not too much of a problem. Unless of course, the screws are rusted to shit, so check those.
I've wrote up some basic tips here
The gist is keep things that rub against each other lubricated except of course the brakes, keep your brakepads in order and also know when the time is to do maintenance on your drivetrain.
thank you, but you dropped this