General Cycling Discussion - Saving Bike Bucks

I'm poor. That means I'm always looking for ways to save money while trying to continue to cycle with appropriate gear.

What follows are my favorite substitutes for the stuff they sell in bike mags,

Sunglasses - Remington Shooting glasses, $8 a pair

Base layer stuff - Wool and poly undershirt from a sporting goods store

Socks - 1) Army wool socks 2) regular cycling socks with a $4 poly liner

Sports drink - Gatorade powder from the supermarket

Energy Bars - Nature Valley Granola (century tested by yours truly!)

WD-40 for chasing the water off my drive train after wet rides (WD stands for water displacement)

Anybody got any tips for saving more $$$

Originally posted by amerpie
Anybody got any tips for saving more $$$
The same money you'd spend on a 12 oz. bottle of Finish Line degreaser (or something similar) will buy you a gallon of Simple Green.

2 tips

1)EBAY

2)DON'T use WD-40 on a bike!


This should save you lots of money;) :D

Ditto on the Simple Green. It's cheap and works great.

Thrift stores. Great source of cycling clothing, usually unused. Can't remember the last time I paid more than two bucks for a pair of shorts. If you find the ones that have a pick up service, you can sometimes find good older bikes. I just picked up a nice old Peugeot for a song.
I've also had good luck with the local alley ways-- people are always tossing out bikes, and I've gotten a mish-mash of mid-range bike parts off tossed bikes (I ignore the Huffys and like), including racks and other odd stuff. I'm always surprised at how unridden many of these bikes are.

Originally posted by Poguemahone
Thrift stores. Great source of cycling clothing, usually unused. Can't remember the last time I paid more than two bucks for a pair of shorts. If you find the ones that have a pick up service, you can sometimes find good older bikes. I just picked up a nice old Peugeot for a song.
I've also had good luck with the local alley ways-- people are always tossing out bikes, and I've gotten a mish-mash of mid-range bike parts off tossed bikes (I ignore the Huffys and like), including racks and other odd stuff. I'm always surprised at how unridden many of these bikes are.
Ditto. Pick up a good old bike from a thrift shop for 10 - 25 bucks and use it for parts. Heck, you'd be suprised what will actually fit, even from 25 year-old bikes. I couldn't afford new shifters, so I paid 15 bucks for an old Schwinn Super Sport and put the shifters on my commuter (they are actually extremely trouble-free and require almost zero adjustments, even when replacing the cable, which I also now find I never need to do anymore.) This alone saved me close to $100, not counting that I found the old Weinmann brake shoes work great, saving another $20 to $40.

As a bonus, the frame is supposed to be quite special, according to those who understand frame building, but strangely enough, while that's the most interesting part of the bike, it's the least useful to me since it's far too big.

For sports drink - water, apple juice, lemon juice, salt (in proportions so it tastes OK)

For energy bar - bananas

You can check out some of your local yard sales.I found a trek 6000(My winter bike) like new for just 50 bucks.Plus some other good stuff.

Originally posted by kewlrunningz
2 tips

1)EBAY

2)DON'T use WD-40 on a bike!

This should save you lots of money;) :D

1) agreed

2) huh? I'd rather expose my ignorance and learn, than hide it and not...
Please fill me in on this, kewlrunningz, I have a bad feeling about my deraileurs...

"I am also poor", I don't watch movies in movie houses, don't smoke, I drink (beer) occasionally, I work at home, that save me a lot of money to buy my cycling stuff, that is, I have to hide it from my wife, he he:D

Well WD-40 isn't evil it's just that it shouldn't be used to lube the bike or anything. The only reason to use it would be to clean the drive chain...which is another reason not to use it, it will not allow proper adhesion of the lube which will inturn cause wear on the bike. If you clean with it, make sure to get it all off before lubing. I'd recremend Orange Clean or some type of degreaser over WD-40.