I've recently started biking around quite a bit. I bought a $5 Huffy mountainbike from a thrift store. I believe it's an 18- or 21-speed. I use it for city riding only, sometimes for 10-mile roundtrips.

I have little in the way of money, but I'd like a better ride. This machine just seems a bit ineffecient.

For a rider spending a little bit of money, would it be best to do upgrades (wheels, tires, bearings) or save that money toward a better quality bike?

I keep checking the thrift stores. At one, all bikes are $5. At the others, prices range from $5-$30.

I've seen several other multi-speed (non-mountain) bikes--what's the term for those?--but I haven't found one that seemed much better than the one I have.

I've searched books and the web. I've looked over many posts here. But I'm just not finding the info I'm looking for.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

-DannyOKC

It's usually not financially wise to upgrade a Huffy. A Huffy is generally a disposable bike. I would save up for a better bike instead of sinking money into the Huffy. What are some of the brands of those other bike at the thrift store. Sometimes you can find hidden gems at thrift stores.

Save your money.

I ride a huffy mountain bike on the road only so I am replacing my tires to get slicks, other than than your best bet is to try and get a road bike. (look at what they use in Tour de france) may also have been known as racing bikes.

Forget about changing a single component on that huffy, ride it till it dies which shouldn't take too long. Take stock of what's available at the thrift stores, research the names when you get home and perhaps you will find something better there that is worth your money.
How much money were you planning on spending exactly? Perhaps there is a decent bike on ebay for the amount or something on consignment at your lbs.

Save your money. You'll need it for toilet paper.

g'day,

for the $5 you paid for it....if you managed to ride it home & its didn't fall to bits, you probably got your monies worth....ride it till it rots then sell it on ebay...you might even make a profit!,

hitchy

Look at it this way, they all weigh the same. You can own a twenty pound bike and carry a twenty pound lock, or you can ride a forty pound bike and not have to bother with a lock.

Thanks for the responses.

At the thrift stores I've seen a Raleigh and a few more with names I don't remember. So far I haven't seen anything that looked like it was of any real quality, but I check three times a week, just in case.

As for how much I want to spend...$5 is a good start. But seriously, not much. A couple hundred at the most. I'd rather wait for a great bargain than just buy something at market value.

What I don't understand is why wouldn't better tires, wheels, and other parts be a good idea? What's so bad about the frame? Is it the weight?

I realize that a better bike will have matching parts that work in conjunction with each other for that machine, but it just seems like I could spend $50 here and $50 there and improve my bike little by little.

-DannyOKC

Keep in mind that your stated objective was to keep the cost down. When you start buying better wheels, tires and the like, the cost can shoot up real fast. The value of the bike, on the other hand, at best stays about the same and at worst may actually even decline because there are still some misguided folks who think that a Schwinn Varsity is a classic.

Actually a Raleigh can be of good quality depending on what model it is and when it was made.


If by a "couple hundred" you mean you can budget upwards of around $350 then you will be able to afford a pretty reliable/dependable/durable new entry level MTB with a warranty and LBS support like the Specialized HardRock. I'd be saving up for that instead of sinking money into a Huffy. Upgrading a Huffy is like investing in a beach house built in the north pole. There's no substantial foundation there and there never will be no matter how much money you dump into it. You'd constantly have to fix it by dumping more money into it than the house and land was worth. Plus every so often, the glacier will move and wipe it out. Then there's the fact that it's undesirable to live there in the first place. The frame of bikes like the Huffy, Magna, Pacific, Motiv and others you might find in discount dept. stores are of low build quality. They're generally heavy, suspect construction, made of low quality material and the incremental price of the parts you would have to get to just keep it running for any decent period of time is oftentimes a substantial fraction of the purchase price of the bike. In your case, it will cost many times more than what you paid for the original bike.


Okay... so the first three things I'd replace on a Huffy if I were forced to replace anything would be:

1. The wheels - poor material and build quality and probably very suspect construction. Wheels are probably the hardest thing for even professionals to build to any consistant and high standard. I wouldn't trust Huffy as far as I could throw those things and that's not very far since those wheels are pretty heavy. The braking surfaces are also scary. I don't know about nowadays but when I was a kid with a Huffy, the rims were made of stamped sheetmetal with chromed over finishes. Those do not brake very well and I would go so far as to call them downright dangerous. The good news is that a wheelset can be transferable from bike-to-bike but then again, unless you ende up doing a frame-up build on a new bike (costlier than just buying a complete new bike in a lot of cases) then you'll just have an extra set of wheels lying around. You might be able to sell them though. So how much does a new set of wheels cost? Even if you were to get the cheapest parts you could find and have them built:
   
   • Rims - ~$15/ea, total of ~$30/pair
   • Spokes - ~$0.15/ea, total of ~$4.80/wheel (32-hole rim) and thus ~$9.60/pair
   • Nipples - ~$0.15/ea and like above, ~$9.60/pair
   • Hubs - ~$15 (front), ~$20 (rear) for a total of ~$35
   • Cassette - You probably can't reuse your current cassette as they're most likely incompatible with the new rear hub. If you can, you can knock this price off. I'm going to assume you have either a 7-speed or 8-speed cassette. A new one will cost ~$15.
   • Labour - Unless you're a skilled wheelbuilder, the bikeshop is going to charge you around $35 to build a new pair of wheels. And I think that price is probably low. Expect to pay more.
   
   So it looks like for a new pair of entry-level wheels, you're going to end up forking over around $135. That's almost halfway to the price of a brand new entry-level bike with wheels of the same exact quality.
   
   Now, there's another route. You can look around various online retailers for a set of new pre-built wheelsets of slightly lesser but still acceptable quality. These will probably run you somewhere around $40. However, you will probably still want to take them to a bikeshop and have them stress and tension (and possibly even true) them to avoid spoke failure. Call that labour charge $15. So you're looking at $55 for new wheels there. Let's assume you go that route. These may or may not fit your frame and work with your components out of the box. Cheap bikes like those from Huffy were really never designed to be upgradable nor do most wheelbuilders ever expect their wheels to fit on them. It's just not common practice.
   
   
2. Chain - You will most likely need a new chain to work with your new cassette. These run around $10 - $15 for the cheapest. Let's say you're savvy and can find one for $10.
   
3. Brakes - I'm not sure about new Huffys these days but the ones I remember (and probably the ones from a thrift store) had really shoddy brakes. Assuming the bike frame is capable of accepting standard MTB brakes as opposed to the earlier bikes which had mounts for only sidepull calipers, a new set of brakes will cost around $15/ea so $30/pair.

So now we're basically up to $95 just to replace the bare minimum. This still doesn't address what will most likely be a problematic drivetrain which will probably only last you a year... maybe two if you're lucky but realistically around six months if you ride regularly and even with constant care and tuning. A new set of derailleurs, cranks, shifters, etc will most likely have you staring at $200 (at least) for entry-level stuff. and in the end, you're still left with entry-level parts (at least they're decent though) on a sub-par frame. So for the amount of money you would have invested here and there, you could have easily purchased a brand new bike of much higher quality that will last you at least ten times as long.

Thanks.

That's the kind of info I needed.

Now I'd like to know what are some good bikes around the $350 price you mentioned. Keep in mind that this is purely street (and sidewalk) riding in the city. There are hills. I'll be doing 10-20 mile roundtrips.

-Danny

Are you interested in the more upright riding position of a mountain bike? Are you interested in doing some light offroad? How fast do you expect to be going? You essentially have four choices.

1. Mountain Bike - made primarily for offroad riding, big fat tyres, hefty durable frame, low wide-range gearing, most have suspension of some kind
2. Road Bike - made primarily for road riding and going fast over long distances, thin tyres, thinner frame, light, lower riding position, tight gearing that's higher than the other types of bikes, generally no suspension
3. Hybrid - basically a roadbike but with a bit more upright position, uses MTB like controls, thin roadbike-like tyres, wide-range gearing but not as low as MTB gearing, some have suspension
4. Comfort Bike - sort of a mix between a beach cruiser and a MTB but not really suited for offroad riding, slower and not really made for long-distance rides, lower gearing, may come with suspension of some kind, fat tyres

Of the above bikes, you'll have a hard time finding a new road bike for around the $350 range but you can easily find entry-level mountain, hybrid and comfort bikes at that pricepoint. Note that unless you're really riding rough offroad trails, suspension is a waste and at the entry-level pricerange, they're pretty crappy. For paved and light gravel trails, a rigid frame and fork will be just fine.

DannyOKC, I believe you'll find several decent bikes at your price point. I'd just pop into my friendly local bike shop and take a look. Take a test ride. You may get a good deal, especially when the '05 bikes come in.

One more thing: please stay off the sidewalk.

DannyOKC

In 1998, I started seriously riding and purchased a Specialized Hardrock entry level mtn bike for right at $300.00

I still have and use that bike 9,000 miles later. It still goes great, I rode it on a 350 mile bike tour, it looks good.

Due to my ignorance about chain stretch, I let the chain wear out and had to replace the cassette and chainrings. Still, over the years I have put about $250 total in repairs. Of course, this does not count normal things like tires and regular chain replacement (I do this religiously, now).

So, for a total investment of $500 over 6 years, I have gone 9,000 miles, or about 5.5 cents per mile for this bike.

Your Huffy would never, ever match these costs, nor would it lasr 9,000 miles, IMHO.

(Of course, along the way, I decided to get a road bike or two, and get my wife a road bike, mtn bike and a hybrid). Lots of miles on these other bikes, also!

But nothing so cost-effective on a per mile basis as the Specialized HardRock.

There are lots of other similar bikes at your local LBS. Check it out!

Have fun. Please stay off of the sidewalks!

Stay off the sidewalks?

Why?

-Danny

Sidewalks are dangerous places to ride. It's been proven time-after-time. Do a search in these forums and you'll find many of reasons as well as recounts of the consequences of riding on the sidewalk.

Not only is it dangerous to you and pedestrians, it is illegal in most jurisdictions. I imagine it's illegal in Oklahoma too. But mostly it's dangerous.

Hey DannyOKC- Here in Florida there are gobs of pawn shops. I look on weekends for good deals on power tools. But anyhow they always have bikes chained up out front like a cattle pen. Sometimes there are good deals and most of the time it is junky stuff. Lots if metal for less than 50 Bucks to choose from.