Originally Posted by
El Gato27
Yes, it will be a beater bike, but it will be mechanically sound--new pads, cables/housing, new grease, etc... and locked.
Planning to add hose clamps to the wheel quick release(s), not much but maybe enough for the thieves to go to the next bike.
I'll go with stainless, hopefully one of the LBS carries stainless.
Why not just replace the skewers with security skewers. Certainly less janky.
My advice. Don't give him a bike that you're not prepared to lose. A campus that big? It'll likely get stolen.
If you want the best chance of keeping the bike around, buy him a good lock and a way to mount it to his bike securely when he's riding it so it's hard to forget it.
Stainless does eventually corrode, but more importantly is the that housings themselves rust because they are NOT stainless. I'm unsure how I feel about stainless cables. For me, I replace most of my cables yearly, so I can use the cheapest of the cheap and never worry about it. Sure, I could go longer, but it's all of a few dollars every year to replace cables and housing. That is worth it to me since it does such a good job at ensuring good shifting. I see bikes come in all the time with stainless cables but with housing that is beat to crap, and we still have to replace both the cable AND housing because the housing rust made the stainless cable "fuzzy" and not move smoothly in new housing.