WITH the beginning of the academic year Oxford is flooded with new students.

Some arrive with their bicycles, others wait until they are settled to get a bike. As a seller of reconditioned bikes in Oxford I get to meet a lot of them in their search for the perfect student bike.

I remember fondly coming to Oxford to study and discussing with my father the need to have the perfect second-hand bike to get around on.

As we were both handy with the spanners we decided using eBay to find one would work out fine. Taking a final holiday to Scotland I left my father launching his first ever eBay venture wondering if he would get the hang of it and get me the perfect vintage racing bike requested or misunderstand the whole concept and purchase everything going that loosely matched the description.

Luckily he won one pretty easily and called Scotland to inform me, but unluckily as soon as he had it in his hands the spanners came out and it bore little resemblance to the original description by the time he had finished.

However, that bike did me well, it was sound as a pound and we explored Oxford happily together. It even carried on going for another five years. But I was lucky, not seeing the bike beforehand meant it could have been ready for the scrapheap or needed more care and attention than I was willing to put in.

I have seen just that scenario play out in front of my eyes as students bring bikes to be mended that they have bought from other students.

You see one problem with a lot of bikes in Oxford is a high percentage of them were designed to fail just after their warranty period is up. Cheap bikes with cheap componentry are ridden into the ground and ready for the scrapheap and there is no way they will do another three years after that without a lot of work.

The all-important bearings of a bike keep things moving around but once they pack up you no longer need a quick fix with the spanners. You need big repairs like bottom brackets and wheel replacements, not what you want to be spending your money on when you could be doing that all-important student socialising.

So how to do you recognise a dud and steer clear of buying something that will quickly become a money pit?

Start by having a good old yank on the cranks. If there’s movement side-to-side that bottom bracket will need replacing – remember they are only designed to go in circles, not sway as well.

The same is true of the wheels. Do they wobble when stationary? Do the wheels run true when spinning? Flip the bike over and have a look.

Finally: ride it. Does it actually work and, more importantly, does it stop? If in doubt ride it to a local bike shop – a friendly mechanic will always look it over and tell you what’s wrong with it and if the seller’s not up for you checking it out then they certainly have something to hide. Finally, to be sure, why not just buy it from a bike shop? You know it’s been checked then and you have somewhere to go back to if it goes wrong.