Wanted: One Bicycle

[ewt]

If I am going to start working more than about a 20-minute walk away from my house I want to be able to cycle to my place of employment.

The only real difficulty with this is that I do not currently own a bicycle.

I would need a ladies' bicycle, as I have an annoying tendency to wear skirts nearly all the time. I also do not like to lean forward a lot when I ride, it makes my back sore. As I am fairly tall and therefore need the seat quite high, this means I need handlebars that also go fairly high. In short, a bicycle for a 6' tall woman with back problems.

I saw a folding bicycle (fairly old) in a second hand shop for £20, but the back brakes do not work. Any idea how much that sort of repair costs?

Anyone know of a good second-hand bike shop?

Anyone have advice on what to buy? what NOT to buy?

Comments

[sourcebook.livejournal.com]

In general the bigger the wheel size you can manage, the smoother and faster your ride. The problem with the folding bikes is small wheel size, which can make for a strenuous ride.

Having said that, £20 seems reasonable for a second-hand bike in London. You're only going to get cheaper than that at the car boot sales and you'd be at risk of severe cultural dislocation if you ventured to one of those.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

How much would it cost to fix the brakes, do you think?

I would try to haggle the price down but they ARE a charity shop and I don't like to argue with the prices they set, I am sure it must be bad karma or something.

[sourcebook.livejournal.com]

Probably easiest to do it yourself. If it's just replacing brake pads, they cost a few pounds and aren't difficult to fit. If it's any more complex than that, you might find the repair bill from a bike shop adds up to more than you paid for the bike. I might have a suitable folding shopper bike in the garage at home (Southend) which you can have for free (would otherwise go to the tip). I'll take a look at it tonight - send me email via my LJ profile if you're interested.