Hello from Lowestoft

[EpicFishFingers]

Hi I'm Alex and I've had bad experience with bikes before, but ever since I've stopped buying rubbish £100 bikes from Halfords, I haven't had any problems. But I've come here mainly to get help with maintaining my two bikes so that they don't fall into disrepair like the £100 bikes did.

This is my current bike, but I also have a road bike (an old Claud Butler that's had nearly every part of it replaced, most recently the handlebars which I managed to somehow pull in half) that I use at uni.
I don't cycle much at the moment, but when I do I always cycle fast (I need to fall off again to take my confidence away, really) and far.
I'm a pretty big bike noob though. I want to start riding 'properly' but I was reading the service manual that came with the bike pictured above and apparently I'm expected to take the entire front suspension fork apart and clean/grease it every year (I've had it about a year now, but I haven't rode it much).
So I have pretty much no clue how to maintain the bikes, but that's the main reason I've come here
I also came here to try and buy a specific bike light fitting separate from the actual light (the old one broke), but that can wait

 

[wheres_my_beard]

Welcome to the forum.

Nice patio set!

Nice bike too. How do you keep it so clean?!

What make of light do you need a fitting for?

 

[EpicFishFingers]

Hi, thanks but that's just my Dad's patio stuff, I'm home from uni at the moment, so I'm living with my parents again...

Yeah, got it off eBay, it's a Dawes 1.8C I think, but it's been really good to ride The last-year models that are still 'new' are always cheaper, managed to get it for £350 rather than £530. I rarely (i.e. never) ride it offroad though, and am considering buying road tyres for it, because I mainly ride it on roads and paths. It's been kept clean because of this, the mudflaps (stole them from one of my old (18 months old to be precise) bikes that rusted away), and that I recently hosed down and cleaned the entire bike, then re-oiled it and stuff.

The bike light is a Lifeline 5 LED front light, and I left the fitting on my bike at uni. I bought some cheap bike lights on a whim (Tesco value ones) one night when I realised I had none on the bike. The front light of that bundle was ungainly, not waterproof, not bright, took C-sized batteries, and broke the first time I came off the bike (actually riding off-road, the bike light got crushed because it was so ****ing fat) The back light is the tesco value one - that same generic back-light design you get in most bike light bundles that works pretty fine.
This is the front light
I took the actual torch home from uni, but forgot the damn fitting :/