Biking 101: Part 2 “Where to Look”

Last week we started talking about pros and cons of buying an inexpensive bike. Check out Biking 101: Cheap Bike to catch up or refresh your memory.

What kind of bike am I looking for?

The first time I took my bicycle to a mechanic for maintenance, I learned that there is not much I can do to make my ride faster, lighter, or easier to use. However, it triggered a different question – “What bicycle am I looking for?” As a man, I hate admitting that there is something I don’t know, but here I was standing in the middle of his garage with a dumb look on my face asking a question every newbie is so hesitant to ask: “What am I looking for?”

Luckily for me the bike guy didn’t pay attention to that “intelligent” look on my face (or at least pretended not to, or maybe he is just a professional and is happy to be of help) and said the following:

“You’re looking for a bicycle that would be light, rigid, maneuverable, and fast. Your ideal bike would be capable to take on any kind of upgrades, because you will change things to fit your lifestyle. You want a bicycle that will carry you through many years, but first and foremost – you have to understand what you need from your bike.”

Hmm, I might have not known much about bikes at that point, but I realized that our bikes were neither fast nor maneuverable. They did take us from point A to point B, but if the distance was long and the road surface rough – it sure did make me feel uncomfortable for few days after the ride.

Craigslist Bike: Buy or Not to Buy

Does it mean that Craigslist is not a good place to buy a bicycle? On the contrary, it might be a great place to buy your next ride, if you know what you’re looking for. After we got a general understanding of what we wanted to do, we went back to the site and found many bikes to choose from, however our target price went up from $50 to $70-$120.

How to start searching for a bike?

Start your research by answering these questions:

• what are you planning to do with it?
• What activities would you pursue? Understanding “the purpose” at the early stage of bike shopping experience will save you from buying a wrong bike (and will save you money too).

There are four major bike types out there:

• Road Bicycles
• Mountain Bicycles
• Hybrids
• Cruisers

The difference between them lays primarily in different construction, since each of these has a different purpose. Without getting too much into technical details the geometry and components of each bike is arranged differently to make the most out of each class under conditions it was designed for.

Start paying attention to bikes around you – you will noticed how bicycles on the pavement usually would look differently from the ones on the wooded or mountain trails. We will talk more about different kinds of bikes in our next article.