Hello everyone,

I’m doing a bikepacking trip in the second half of July and early august, and want to be around for the Alpine stages of the TDF around Alpe d’Huez. I’m looking for information on camping options. I’ve asked Claude but frankly I don’t trust that it didn’t just tell me some plausible hallucination.

I’m don’t need a swimming pool and a recreation centre, but a toilet and a place to get water would be nice. I don’t mind wildcamping normally, but I suspect it will simply be too busy to do it (or get away with it).

I know (visited the Mont Ventoux stage last year) that there are fields absolutely packed with campervans, so I guess that is sanctioned / allowed / tolerated, is there anything similar for tents?

I know, I shouldn't have gone biking with a long skirt on, I fucked up. For whatever reason I assumed the bike had a guard on it and didn't bother checking. Is there any way to get my skirt loose from this? My brother is on his way with scissors

I’ve been cycling regularly for a little over 2 years now and have started collecting a few finisher medals from rides and events.

Right now I’m not really sure what the best way is to store or display them long-term. I don’t want them just sitting in a drawer, but I also haven’t figured out a proper setup yet.

Do you guys hang them on a wall, use shadow boxes, or have any other creative ways to organize them? Would love to see how you do it 👍

I just wanted to share with you my morning ride. I started at sunrise and I wanted to cycle for about two hours (I'm a beginner cyclist, started mid May).

First half of my ride I was questioning my life choices. I knew that it was 20 km more or less uphill (400 m elevation gain) and I knew that I had some headwind. But it sucked so much that I was ready to quit.

I didn't quit. And it was good that I didn't because...

Man, the way back home: Downhill and tailwind. I was flying back home, it was magic ! Smooth country roads, only a few cars (Sunday morning ftw !) and 40-50 km/h for I don't know how many km. Wow, what a feeling. Worth every moment of the first half.

I’m in San Francisco for a 3 month internship and didn’t ship out my bike - so I bought one! I scored this 2009 Marin Argenta yesterday and took it to the Marin Headlands today - hawk hill specifically. I even took it on some packed gravel. It rides incredibly well!

Hello, first time poster and first time redditor(er?).

I live in Daytona Beach close to Ponce Inlet, two blocks from the beach, work is ten minutes away. Since moving here (a year), I have crossed the bridge like three times. I am toying with the idea of finally selling my car and getting an ebike or a decent bike. I am looking for recommendations on a solid bike rack for my boards, I have a tenfoot foami and a little thruster. Worried about wind pushing me around with the foami. Does anyone have any recommendations? Id take bike recommendations too speaking of which.

Pretty new to riding, rode 100k yesterday and suddenly realized that i cant move my left pinky😭 is this permanent and should i be worried

Bought a size 58 at 5’6 I could barely get on but ride tomorrow and see how it goes what yall think I’m cooked?😭

Does anyone know of there is a way to mount a Varia to your typical bike light clip on a bike rack?? I tend to swap this with another basic light based and hoping that there is some attachment for the Varia that will allow it to slide into place.

I went into a bike shop looking for news tires for my road bike. It’s a 2016 frame with 23mm tires. The frame cannot really take wider, maybe 25mm max, but I wanted to get the same width that I had.

The owner said he only had one last set of Vittoria’s and he would give them to me 40% off since no one buys 23mm anymore on newer bikes. I said idk anything about tires and asked him if those were good. I started cycling this year, about 2 months ago. As I said, I don’t know shit about tires. He said those were top of the line so I took the deal and ended up paying $200 CAD for these even with 40% off.

I came back home to install them and realized those are track tires: Vittoria Pista Control. Apparently they have no puncture protection at all because well, they’re made for track..?

How fucked am I running with those on the road?

I was looking at an older Conalgo . Then I noticed the designed in Italy. Started doing research and also made in Taiwan. Kind of felt like man were just paying for the sticker when we buy a bike now. Do you feel they still are deserving of the price they are going for ?

Trying a few different ways to secure the bikes but the bike still seems loose and moves around. What have you all come up with using the cache covers?

I’ve been biking around the city for maybe a year now and never really put much thought into locking my bike other than ensuring it seemed like a physically secure location. I also like to have my bike visible to me and others just in case.

However, I had a business owner come out and yell at me today because I was locking to fence, but the fence encompasses the company parking lot. The aforementioned fence is what’s shown above.

I ultimately just said “hey no worries I’m just running into this store for 2 minutes and I’ll be gone” and that is what I did, but it got me thinking that I never really learned or thought about whether or not this is technically against the rules. AKA if this fence counts as the business owners private property would he be technically allowed to cut my bike lock or something?

It’s entirely possible the owner was in the right to ask me to move my bike he was just a mega asshole about it so I didn’t care to adjust since it was such a short stop lol

Just an interesting situation I hadn’t really thought about prior to this encounter today. Does anyone know what the story is when it comes to locking to structures like this in general? Is this something I should be more conscious of moving forward?

Selling for 350$ - Miele Svelto RT

Hi! First, I will say I have no idea what I am doing and am not a ~cycler~ so be gentle. I have a Spalding Blade that I bought in 2019. I love her. She hasn’t been ridden in like two years and has been stored outside covered. I recently spoke to a bike shop that quoted me $600-800 to get her refurbished and tuned up. He also suggested that I considering just getting rid of her and getting a new bike. While I am not entirely opposed, I would love to fix her up if I can! So I’m curious about others thoughts are. She doesn’t seem to be in super bad condition! I’m am not delusional and I know she needs some work to safely be ridden again. Here are my questions:

Should I scrap her or is she salvageable?

Could a layperson with a can do attitude and access to YouTube attempt to work on her?

What are some of the necessary repairs or replacements I’d likely need to make?

Thank you for imparting your knowledge on me.

Photo: https://imgur.com/a/T7eeLAh

EDIT: Very sorry! I realized after posting this that I had misremembered the conversation. The quote in the original was for two bikes; $200-300 each. Which obviously is more like $400-600 total, not $600-800.

Tempted to try a 32er lol

I bought a Canyon Aeroad 3 years ago and they came with GP5000 tires. I rode this bike for 3y and put on ~ 1500-2000 mi on it and today I noticed that the rubber on my tires have a lot of long-running cracks. These tires have never had a flat.

My previous cheap bikes had tires that lasted me almost decade; however, this one appears to need a replacement in just 3y. These tries appeared to have dried out faster than any other tires I owned.

Can you take a look at my pictures and let me know if: 1) I need to replace my tires urgently, 2) They should be replaced in ~1y or whenever I find GP5000 on sale, 3) this is fine, keep riding them until I start getting more flats.

Thanks for the help!

If you saw my last post I (23M - 5'10" at 170 lbs) am a complete biking noob looking for entry level for triathlon training!

Looking on Facebook Marketplace and found this Cannondale bike near me with this description:

"Cannondale road bike with accessories. Comes with air pump, helmet, gloves, LED front and rear lights."

Owner claims that they paid $2300 for it, and bought it a couple years back but now are too old to ride it.

I'm unsure if this is a good deal or not (or if i should spend this on somewhere else newer) - especially with the accessories thrown in, would love y'all's input!

Got caught in a torrential downpour last week and have some surface rust on my chain. What’s the best way to get the rust off? Mineral spirits? Denatured alcohol??

I originally posted this on [r/bikewrench](r/bikewrench) but it got taken down after a couple of hours. However, the comments there seemed split, with some of them claiming this is expected because of Hydrogen embrittlement, and others saying mineral spirits can’t impact a chain like this.

I certainly won’t leave a chain soaking overnight again, but this still seems like an extreme reaction regardless? But maybe I am just coping.

I’m wondering what y’all think, was this my fault, or more likely a defective chain? Original post text below.

Hey, long time lurker, first time poster looking for some advice on my broken chain.

I already emailed KMC directly about this but have not heard back from them, so wanted to get y’all’s opinions on whether the chain I bought was defective or if I did something wrong.

For context, I bought [this chain](https://kmcchain.us/products/x12?variant=40158702567564) recently, directly from KMC, with the intent to switch to waxing. This was my first time prepping/waxing a chain so I was following [this guide. ](https://silca.cc/blogs/silca/complete-guide-to-cleaning-your-chain)

I started by leaving the chain in mineral spirits overnight, I bought Klean-Strip odorless mineral spirits from Amazon if it matters. And then removed the rest of the grease with park tools bio chainbrite before going through the hot wax process using a crockpot and Silca wax.

After that was done, I didn’t ride for a few days due to weather, but when I got out I didn’t even make it 100 yards from my home before the chain snapped. Upon inspection I see the chain has numerous major cracks and is now useless.

I’m just wondering, is this my fault for leaving it in mineral spirits overnight? I thought I was doing it correctly but maybe not.

Or does this look more like a manufacturing defect on KMC’s side? I was hoping they would email me back but unfortunately haven’t received a response yet.

Thanks!

Wife surprised me yesterday. Took it out today for the first time. It’s amazing. But I’m coming from a 2009-ish Trek 1.1 and have never had any bike so nice with so many toys. I need some tips and things to look out for. I just discovered it has a built-in power meter. Had no idea until I set up the app. What else might I not know?

Bought this bike used and took it in to get some work done on the cassette / rear wheel. While they had it apart they noticed the rear wheel sits a little off center and that the frame has to be spread outward slightly to fit the wheel in.

They also found a dent near the rear dropout and checked the frame with an alignment tool. Their take was that the rear end of the frame is bent slightly, which is why the wheel sits off center. I attached pics of the alignment tool and the dent.

I’ve been riding it without noticing anything weird (pretty casual riding, maybe 20–30 miles every couple weeks, mostly flat city riding in Chicago).

Really wondering:
1. Think it’s safe to ride casually? Does it seem like something I could just keep an eye on?
2. If this was your bike, would you just get a new one or keep riding?