bautieri

Walk to the nearest house and ask to use their phone...or send a smoke signal.

Good tip on the Tyvek, but I also like the idea that my tire boot could also buy me a snack if need be.

zjrog

Just remember to replenish the snack fund... I forgot once...

I have carried small sections of tire as a boot too.

Wogster

What many do is carry a spare tube or two, when you get a puncture or flat, note I said when, not if, it's usually cold, dark, wet and your a long way from home or car. An experienced person doing a repair with a spare tube can have it done in about a minute two tops, it takes 5-7 minutes for a glue repair, less with the glueless patches but they are not a permanent repair. Of course if you have a blow out or a valve leak, patches will not help, so you really should carry a spare tube anyway. I have a traditional glue patch kit, and on a nice sunny warm afternoon, I will take my punctured tube and patch it. I then goes back on the shelf with the others. When I replace a tire, I put on a new tube, the old one goes on the spares shelf. This can mean that there are a bunch of spares, when I lived in Toronto we had a nail in the garage, it would hold punctured, unrepaired tubes, until I started running low, and then I could end up doing 3 or 4 at once. Once they were repaired they were folded up and put on a shelf, when one got punctured, it went on the nail and I grabbed one from the shelf. We moved and so has the shelf, but none of the tubes on it are patch free.... If it can't be repaired, I toss it.

cyccommute 

Raise your saddle. Your knees will thank you for it.

Your leg should be almost straight when you are at the bottom of the pedal stroke. The way you have it set up now is way too low, especially if you are on a 21" bike.

Don't go throwing a lot of money at the bike to change anything. Factory fresh this bike is about as good as it gets for the money. Put a pump, a patch kit, a spare tube and something to carry them in. Perhaps a rack so that you can carry stuff. Add a computer so that you can track miles and speed if that's important to you. Otherwise just ride the wheels off the bike.

I would also suggest that once you find that you've progressed beyond this bike's capabilities, you look at another bike rather then try to upgrade this one into a better bike. You can keep this one as a commuter/utility bike.

GumbyN

i'm currently riding an old MTB with shocks similar to those (but lower end, i can't lock the shocks).
if you're doing road riding, i'd get rid of the front fork and get one without shocks <--- if you can't lock the shocks from compressing and robbing you of your pedaling power.

just my $.02
it's a pain trying to get up the slightest hill out of the saddle. the shock sucks up all the power i was attempting to put to the pedals.

jgjulio

I also have these pedals on my bike. I like that I can clip or not depending on what I am wearing (shoe) or where I am.

exile

1) Home floor pump with a gauge
2) A lock

longbeachgary

That bike looks too small for me and I'm five seven.

Kabong30

While I will play around with raising the seat I promise it's not too small. Now, I will say that my trunk is long rather than necessarily being long legged so that may make a difference. This is me (from the before/after thread):

Mr. Beanz

All this fuss has got me curious, what size is the bike? Should be tag on the seattube.

cyccommute 

Hybrids are sized more like mountain bikes so a 21" is huge. It's the bail off room (2" to 3") that you need while mountain biking that makes the frames smaller. But that also means that you need to raise the saddle more. Here's what seat post looks like for mountain biking



cruising



and for a road bike



Notice how much post is sticking out on each one. The mountain bikes are 19" which is my size. The road bike is a 58cm (23") and is my size in road bikes. In order to get the proper extension on my leg, I have to have the saddles that high.

Kabong30

Yup, that's 21" which is the biggest they make for that bike. The guy at the shop seemed to think it was fine as well.

https://www.ebicycles.com/custom/cont...tain-bikes.pdf

I realize it's not a mountain bike, but it's as close as I could think of.

Also, it's considered a "comfort" bike so the geometry is different. It's supposed to allow you to "sit up" rather than be leaned over. For now this is good because my back would not abide being leaned over for too awfully long.

cyccommute 

The fit and geometry are only...or at least, mostly... important from the waist (hips, actually) up. From there down to the pedals, everyone's fit is pretty much the same. Your leg should be nearly fully extended with only have a slight bend at the bottom of the downstroke. That doesn't matter if it's bikes like mine, a bike like yours (more feet forward than mine) or recumbents.

jethro56 

cyccommute: You're not fooling me. All three of those bikes fit in the picture. So they must be the same size.

Kabong30

Raised the seat about halfway through my ride tonight. Made a huge difference, thanks for the advice!