Hi,

I purchased a used bike and I was curious as to how I can identify the year the bike was built.

It is in great condition with the only problem that I found so far is that when the bike is in gear 3 (biggest sprocket) in front and 7 in rear (smallest sprocket) that the pedals skip sometime when paddling too hard. Is this a normal occurrence? If not, could this be a potentially bad problem? I got it for around 150 so I am hoping that was a good deal for it. Its silver in color and the writing on it (giant and cypress) are in cursive.

Any thoughts?


Thanks!

No!

It could be any combination of:

1) worn chain
2) worn cassette
3) out of adjustment rear derailleur
4) old and not freely moving shift cable

All are easy and relatively cheap to fix.

Try Bikepedia. Just start scrolling through the years until you find a match.

You can also decipher the date codes on the components (for example derailleurs).

One source for the info is vintage-trek.com

How could I determine what is causing the problem? Should I take it to a bike shop for inspection?

Thanks!