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Be nice. I know these things are cheap. Just wanna be semi prepared.

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  • Are you new to bike and general maintenance or it it specificity about the Huffy's?
    – mattnz
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 0:23
  • Pretty much new man! So far the handlebars have been giving me trouble so I've considered using rubber sleeves or some sort of an adhesive like PL premium.. Maybe even weld it.
    – Trench
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 0:26
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    I wouldn't weld anything on a bike, could create an undoable problem. A rubber sleeve may work well, it's cheap and easily replaced.
    – DWGKNZ
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 0:34
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    Get hold of Park Tools Blue Book and get a basic bike tool kit. Stock up on tyre's, tubes and lubricant, that'll be your first issue. Then see what start's to pop up and learn to fix as you go. The double edged sword of having 30 of the same bike is that once you get a problem it may repeat itself over and over so you're going to initially get very good at fixing specific issues.
    – DWGKNZ
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 0:38
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    You should be ready for lot of problems. Really you bought BSO for rental. What you paid for 30 bikes is what a single commercial duty bike would cost. Expect to pay more in maintenance every few months than you paid for the bikes.
    – paparazzo
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 0:48

3 Answers 3

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Forty years ago Huffy bikes were actually pretty well made, just heavy, ugly, and not very nimble. But now that everything is made in China, as cheaply as possible, it's hard to predict the quality.

First off, you need to keep the tires properly inflated. This is a seemingly trivial but incredibly important (and often overlooked) maintenance item.

Also set up a schedule to check every bike for such items as bearing play (both hubs, crank, and headset) and chain slack at regular intervals. And squirt a bit of oil on the chains at regular intervals.

Otherwise, wait to see what breaks. A lot will depend on how your customers treat the bikes. Be prepared for some bikes to be destroyed, and for others to disintegrate on their own. Expect to use damaged bikes as "organ donors" for repair parts for more serviceable bikes.

The Park Tools website and Sheldon Brown's site are your friends.

(I do wonder what provision you have for adjusting seat height. You may need to invest in quick release adjusters for the seats.)

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  • I happen to know enough about this model to say that OP is screwed. Super low quality everything.
    – Batman
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 3:35
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I would start out by checking all the bearings and adjusting them. In my (limited) experience with cheap bikes, the people that assemble them don't care at all if they do it right. I've seen wheel bearings that were way too tight, so when you lift the wheel off the ground and spin it, it stops quickly. This means that when people ride the bikes, the bearings wear out quickly.

Same thing for the headset (steering bearings), although probably not as critical, but easier to adjust.

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    I just re-read the comments on your question and noticed that you are new to bike maintenance. Adjusting the the bearings is not an easy task for a beginner, but it doesn't require very advanced skills either. You should read about it a bit. But if you're running a bike rental, you will need to learn about all kinds of maintenance tasks, so you might as well start there. Take a look at this page: sheldonbrown.com/cone-adjustment.html
    – Nik
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 1:39
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    My advise would be just read all of the stuff on Sheldon Brown that is vaguely related to the bikes you have.
    – mattnz
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 2:25
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If the bikes have a problem that causes them not to go, that can be lived with. But if they have a problem which causes them not to STOP, somebody could DIE.

Those bikes have the cheapest brake pads possible which might wear out very quickly, depending how they are used. Most of your customers will not make any impact on the brake pads, but some will push the bikes hard, deliberately ride up and down hills, maybe in the rain - under such circumstances set of brake pads which you can still see the lines when renting out can become worn out completely in a single rental period, also causing damage to the wheel rims, not to mention legal problems in case of an accident.

When you start replacing the worn brake pads, you might consider upgrading to other than the cheapest option, because they give a better usage-time/cost ratio.

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  • The Cranbrook line appears to use old-fashioned coaster brakes. These don't really have pads in the usual sense.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 11:21
  • Nice research Dan. Nevertheless, those brakes should also be watched.
    – Craig Hicks
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 19:34

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