Originally Posted by
Squeeze
Do either of the tires look backwards to you guys? They both do to me, but I confess I know little about bike tires.
FWIW, both of those tires look backwards to me as well. Usually for asymmetric tires you should be able to find somewhere on the sidewall a rotation arrow. Also, if there is more lettering/branding on one side, that side belongs on the 'display' side, i.e. the rhs with all the drivetrain. I have seen tires before that actually were designed to be mounted one way on the front, and reverse on the rear. The front tire is mounted, you've got the flat parts of the triangles digging in for forward traction, which is a rear-tire characteristic.
In any case, if you are not going to ride this bike on rocks, I would recommend you replace with slicks or semi-slicks. Eliminating knobby tire rolling resistance is the number one way to speed up a bike on hard surfaces, i.e. asphalt; or even smooth hardpack dirt trails.
brake levers, pedals, grips, saddle...If possible, get thee to a co-op! All these things should be available very cheaply used, and most anything that looks non-crappy will work fine for you. Exception, you'll probably want to buy new grips, but those will be under $10. And seats are very hit-and-miss, and particular to individuals. If you still have the seat you liked before, swap seats at least in the short term while you shop. You might have to go through a large number of seats before you find one that works for you.
Racks/fenders: Your bike has the interesting, but for this purpose unfortunate, design element of wishbone seatstays (with no rack mounts that I can see), and cantilever brakes. There are rack- and fender-mount screw-holes at the top of the dropouts, that's a start, but any rack you might want to clamp up top is going to have a hard time getting around the cantilever brake cable. Maybe you can find a rear rack that mounts onto dropout holes below, and cantilever brake bosses above (i.e. screw on top of your brake calipers). Other than that, I think you're stuck with seatpost racks, which IME are annoyingly difficult to keep stable, and don't keep bags out of your spokes. Fenders, similar issues. I can't tell if there is a mounting hole at the junction of the wishbone.