Originally Posted by
TimothyH
Maybe y'all can help a feller out...
My daughter is a freshman at college and it is pretty clear that she is gonna need a bike, maybe not immediately but next semester for sure when she lives further from her classes. Starting to think about it now.
- Bike will be outside all the time.
- She will carry lots of books.
- She doesn't know how to spin a wrench. I will teach her the basics like how to take a wheel off, fix a flat, etc. I live 1.5 hours away and am really not into traveling from the burbs to ATL to maintain a bike.
- She likes to speed and wants gears. I mentioned single speed for ease of maintenance. She frowned but gears kinda make sense as the campus is hilly.
- Obviously don't want to spend a lot of money and thinking about a craigslist fixer but not if it is going to cost me more in the long run. I can do any work with the exception of pressing a headset and building wheels.
- Expected lifespan of this bike is 3 to 4 years.
Guys in the SSFG seem to be very realistic about commuter/utility/townies and I would appreciate any thoughts.
Mine rode a mid-80s Miyata 710. She was a terror, and commuted on that bike during the winter too (snow). Four years, no accidents worth reporting to dad. With nice tires and saddle, I probably had $350 into that bike, it looked like hell but rode like budda.
However, our thought process was a nicer, pretty bike would have been jacked. This proved to be an accurate assessment, the wheelsets were liberated, front wheel stolen twice. So, a few hundred dollars went into the bike over the years to replace stolen parts. Same with my son, though his college was 3000 miles away from my daughter.
If you think the bike won't be messed with, you are not being realistic.