That's one of the nicest city bikes I've seen. Well done. At this point just keep riding! My one piece of advice is always be very aware of your environment: cars, road condition etc. Keep your "head on a swivel" i.e. keep looking around- including behind you. Makes for a safer ride.

Good luck and keep pedaling!

For future knowledge...

Thanks for the feedback, I thought it was a very nice bike, so it's nice to hear others agree! And thanks for that diagram, I'm sure it will be extremely helpful as I learn more about cycling.

I have another question - my bike came equipped with a dynamo to power the lights. I know that this is supposed to turn the lights on when I pedal, however I can't quite figure out how to turn it on. It sort of lifts slightly and there's a screw at the top of the dynamo that can be twisted. Any ideas?

Re dynamo: some hubs have an on switch. Look for that. Mine doesn't but my front light has a power button controlling the front and rear. It is a large silicon button.

You might also have a grounding issue with the wiring (happened to me). If you do not find any power switches take it to the shop to resolve.

For learning, it is best to use a low gear for easy pedalling.
Put the left shifter in the min (2) position (rotating pedals as you shift), and leave it there for now.
Put the right shifter in gear 2 or 3 (the larger rear cogs), for easy pedalling.
then
Read THIS.

Your lights are powered by a "bottle dynamo" on the rear wheel, left side. There is no switch on the lamp. There is a switch or lever on the dynamo. Pull the dynamo a little, press the switch and release so the roller contacts the wheel/tyre.
The roller rotates freely and is not the switch. Look here.
Some lamps are for use on hub dynamos and do have a switch. If you have this style ( and you shouldn't), leave it ON.

Your rear rack has a spring loaded clamp for any bag but it is not 100% secure. You can fit pannier bags to the sides. The come with plastic hooks to slip onto the rack.

Thanks for posting this. The Stopping/Starting article is very helpful. I'll start practicing the techniques today. I am a slow learner on the bike but these techniques look more solid than my current one-foot-on-the-ground technique, which so far has been unreliable.

I am also a beginning cyclist, having just started pedaling on my own (nobody holding onto the bike) a week and a half ago myself - for the first time in my life. Congrats on your progress. I will also work on using the front brake more often. I took "how to ride for adults" classes and was told to use both brakes - maybe because we were all raw beginners.

You have a very nice looking bike. I also bought a new commuter bike and it, too, has lights that are powered by a dyno-hub. The lights turn on automatically as the sun sets - they are activated by a light sensor. Maybe it is the same for your bike.

My own goal is to be able to cycle within a bike lane or sidewalk. I currently have the tendency to swerve, which would be dangerous if I were trying to ride with cars and pedestrians around. Hopefully the Sheldon Brown articles for beginners will help, but I think the best is just to keep riding my bike as often as possible. Regarding the rack, my bike also has a rack and I am probably going to get a pair of Ortlieb panniers for the rack. They are popular with cyclists in my area for being waterproof and durable.

Perhaps you're right about the lights. I haven't tried cycling in the dark yet, so I will give that a go some time and see if the lights work.

I've been finding those Sheldon Brown articles very helpful, so thanks to whoever posted them earlier in this thread. Like you, I have a tendency to swerve, so I still need lots of practice before I'm ready to hit the road.

I also wanted to ask about helmets - are there any specific brands that I should be going for (or avoiding, for that matter), or should I just go to my local store and buy whatever they have in stock?

Buy the one that fits best. They are all certified and offer good protection.

I'd say buy the cheapest one that is comfortable.
Safety wise as PepeM said.

Personally I go for more visible coloured helmers; yellow, white, red, though I would suggest that a neon vest makes way much more difference than the colour of your helmet.

A bandana or "Buff" is good to keep insects out of your hair and keeps the helmet cleaner.

The lights on my bike actually turn on while the sun is still up - usually around the late afternoon or early evening when the shadows of the trees and other things start to get longer.

For today's practice, I got a lot better at cycling on a sidewalk - still room for improvement but much better than the first time I tried it. The other things I need to get better at are climbing and descending - I still tend to use too much brake for the latter.

My helmet is the Bern Brentwood. The "spikey"/racing style helmet is popular here with cyclists who like to race, but I see just as many commuting cyclists wearing helmets that are more like mine, which I guess is the "urban" style helmet. The bike shop where I bought this helmet let me try some helmets. It came down to which helmet would fit my head (some Bern helmets have an unusual fit) and which would provide reasonable ventilation in hot weather. For my "how to ride" classes I was provided with a racing style helmet and while this style provides, in theory, the best ventilation, I was still sweating a lot in my first class, which was in a parking lot on a warm day with no shade. One nice thing about the Bern is that the summer liner can be replaced with a winter liner that includes flaps for the ears. The flip visor is also nice, as well as the dial on the back for adjusting the tightness. All the racer helmets I've tried have that dial while most urban style helmets do not. I don't have enough experience with cycling to give proper helmet advice but maybe my story will help somehow. The guy at the shop who worked with me helped me find my helmet, and he didn't just try to sell the most expensive one - I got a discount due to my WABA (Washington Area Bicyclist Association) membership.

I really like that Bern Brentwood helmet. I like that style more than the racer-style helmets that seem to be more popular. It's pretty pricey though, and I'm concerned that it might not be as well ventilated as others. Ventilation is very important since it gets very hot over here - well into 30 degree Celsius range in summer, so I need something that will be as well-ventilated as possible. I'm also slightly wary about buying a helmet online since I guess it would be best to make sure it fits well.

The guy at the bike shop recommended the Brentwood to me because that had the best ventilation out of all the Bern helmets in the store. Two vents in the front, 5 in the top, and 4 in the back.

Earlier this week, the temperature high was around 33 C. I usually cycle when I get home from work - thanks to our daylight savings time I usually get about 1.5 to 2 hours of cycling before the sun sets. Thus, the temperature was below the max at that time, but I did sweat a lot. But I have say that I sweated just as much wearing a racing style helmet under similar conditions, and that was when I was just trying to balance on the bike. With the Bern on my head it was hot weather and I was also putting in effort to "climb" (cycle up inclines - my house is on a hill, so every street has incline/decline) - I don't think I sweated any more than I did in the racing helmet. Actually, what gave me more trouble was the sweat causing my sunglasses to slip from my face. I have Wayfarer style sunglasses and would have gotten Oakley or similar brand sunglasses with the rubber nose bridge and temples if I'd known I would take up cycling just 4 months later.

Like you, I was reluctant to buy a helmet online and was glad to have gone to a bike shop to buy the helmet. I was originally interested in a Nutcase helmet, but the bike shop guy said that the Bern Brentwood had much better ventilation.

BTW, I'd say about half my colleagues who cycle to work wear urban style helmets. What most of them seem to do during warmer months is wear shorts or short dresses/skirts while cycling, carrying their work clothes in panniers or backpacks, and when they arrive at our office building, they use the building's locker room to take showers, then put on work clothes. It seems like a lot of them take showers regardless of style of helmet. In colder months they wear base layers/stockings/whatever under their shorts/dresses/skirts.

Just a quick update on my progress, in case anyone is interested (or in case it might encourage any other total beginners who happen to be reading this!)

I summoned up the courage to venture outside my own road for the first time this morning. I thought I would just go around the block to see how comfortable I would feel, and I ended up going on a 7.5km ride around town! I stuck to quiet back roads where possible and I ended up discovering the most amazing places that I never knew existed despite being five minutes away from my house (abandoned chapels, beautiful alleys and squares etc.). I still slowed down very heavily or stopped whenever a car came anywhere near me, but I felt far more confident than I had previously. More importantly, I really had a blast.

I'm slightly concerned about changing gears though. Sometimes when I shifted gears (especially when I down-shifted), the gears would make a crunching/clicking noise until they fall into place. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?

Typically the crunching happens when one "shifts under load" as they say. If you are pedaling hard on a hill and then downshift while pedaling hard to get into an easier gear, your hard pedaling puts a lot of stress on the chain. You can actually pull the chain apart that way, but probably you won't.

One solution is to anticipate your need to shift so that you can briefly pedal more slowly than the bike is moving. This keeps the chain turning lightly while the bike essentially coasts, and that's the time to shift. The light turning will let the shift happen without overstressing the chain.

As you gain experience, you get better at the timing of it all. At first you'll find that you shift too early, and sometimes too late, but after awhile your inner-brain will take over and you'll be nailing the timing without even thinking about.

One other thing that helps a lot is to downshift just one gear at a time, and let that shift complete before going to the next-lowest gear. This is a technique I use when mountain-biking and find myself surprised by a sudden hill. Cassettes -- the gears at the back of the bike -- are pretty well designed these days. Most can handle a one-gear downshift under load.

Do you have multiple gears at the front of the bike? Those never like to downshift when you are pedaling hard. Always try and pedal lightly when shifting to an easier gear in front. If you get caught out on a hill, then try one shift at a time in the back and leave the front alone until you can pedal easier.

Look carefully at your front gears. To go to an easier gear requires the chain to leave the larger gear and drop onto a smaller the. Pressure from pedaling works against that movement. Whereas on the rear, the easier gear is the larger gear. There are so-called "ramps" machined into the sides of those larger gears to catch and lift the chain when the derailleur pushes it over. That's why you can usually get away with a one-gear shift in the back while pedaling fairly hard. It's because of those ramps.

All the above becomes second-nature after a while.

We are glad you are out on the bike.

Eventually, the time of defense on the road will come:

as ones who choose to like of your bike, may sideswipe you. Cut you off. To antagonize. Resulting in that more than the antagonizing results, like damage.

Excellent! I too was planning to venture outside of my neighborhood today. I live near the Mt. Vernon Trail in the DC area, and this being the Memorial Day weekend, there might be less people on the trail and the parks that it runs through. I wanted to see how long it would take to cycle to the park where the City Cycling/Urban Biking With Confidence class is usually held.

Unfortunately, I volunteered to bring some food to a house concert/party tonight and so had to cut my cycling time for cooking time.

BTW it was 29 C at the time I went cycling.

As for sharing the road with cars, the "commuting to work" booklet that is distributed at our local bike shops all say to take the middle of the lane and do not weave through traffic. If you are off to the side, the driver will be tempted to pass you without changing lanes, and you will also be in greater danger of getting hit by someone opening their car door as you pass their parked car. I admit that the first time I heard a motorized vehicle behind me (turned out to be a van) I got scared and pulled my bike to the side between two parked cars - that is a behavior I need to work on myself.

Ask your LBS if there are any beginner group rides scheduled and join a few. The best way to learn is in person from other riders. You can also see what they use and determine which accessories are needed and quality.

I guess you should learn to ride the bike the same as you learned to drive a car. Start in an empty parking lot and bike around without worrying about hitting anything. Try shifting a bit and braking and stopping, starting, etc. Then move on to quiet neighborhood streets. Are there any bike paths? If so, ride on them to build your confidence. Before riding in traffic, get a mirror.

Thanks for this explanation. I didn't realise that pedaling hard while shifting gear might be the cause. I'll try being more gentle next time to see if that will prevent the clicking/crunching. I have multiple gears both on the front and back of the bike (3 in front and 7 at the rear if I'm not mistaken). I have mostly tried shifting between the 7 at the rear and I hardly touched the front gears. The only time I shifted the front gear was when I was trying to climb a hill and was struggling.

practical - the mirror is a very good point. It had actually crossed my mind and I was thinking of buying one, even if I only use it until I get the hang of things. At the moment I am very shaky whenever I try to turn my head to glance behind me, and I am often slightly unaware of cars creeping up on me, so I think a mirror would be useful. Would any mirror fit on my bike's handlebars? Also, I heard about these mirrors called Bike-Eye https://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-Bike...words=bike+eye - are they any good, or should I go for a regular mirror?