Livre d'Or
Not sheepish, but individ-ewe-al
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Miscellaneous. Eclectic. Random. Perhaps markedly literate, or at least suffering from the compulsion to read any text that presents itself, including cereal boxes.
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Date: 2015-09-25 03:48 pm (UTC)Consider USB-charged bike lights. Makes recharging very convenient.
Consider puncture-resistant tires. They're not 100% indestructible but they do help.
Consider cartridge brakes, if not immediately then the first time you replace your brakes. Replacing brakes is one of the easier maintenance tasks; or at least, it causes me a lot less swearing than puncture repair does.
Keep a spare inner tube around. It's quicker to swap inner tubes than to repair a puncture. (I'm bad at the bit where you repair the punctured inner tube at your leisure though!) Some people just keep whole wheels ready to swap in...
Make sure you actually know how to pump up tires in advance of having to do so. A colleague spent several minutes pumping vigorously at a closed valve not so long ago.
Figure out strategies for not leaving things like lock and lights at home (or anywhere else), and for ensuring lights stay charged (if you don't use a dynamo). For me the danger points where the lock leaves the bike but doesn't always come back are repair and maintenance activities.
Panniers are MUCH more pleasant than backpacks, but you don't have to decide between the two: you can get convertible backpack/panniers, ideal for multimodal journeys.