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Advice on buying new bike?
I am looking to buy a bike to go to work but I know nothing about bikes at all. The only bikes I've had are the cheap 60$ ones from Walmart as a kid that always got stolen. The path to work is about 5 miles flat land so I dont think I need anything fancy. Is there anything I'm suppose to look for when buying a bike? I'm not sure I even know how to ride a real ones since I've never had a bike that had different gears on it.
Would I be missing something if I just bought a generic walmart bike or do I really need to get an expensive one? Are there certain features I should be looking at? Are there online vendors I should buy from? If anypony has any advice I'd appreciate it.
Would I be missing something if I just bought a generic walmart bike or do I really need to get an expensive one? Are there certain features I should be looking at? Are there online vendors I should buy from? If anypony has any advice I'd appreciate it.
Comments
Also, learn to use gears.
Go to a real bike shop, an they will take care of you as long as it isn't a sleazy guy trying to rip you off.
Lastly, http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/
Do you plan to use it for anything other than your commute? Is this a sidewalk/asphalt/smooth dirt path, or is there any grass/terrain involved?
If you only ever plan to take it on bike paths and streets, get a hybrid (unless you want to spend a lot of money: then get a "performance" hybrid). They ride like a "normal" bicycle: you don't have to take the extreme posture that you see in "street" or racing bikes, and can simply sit up mostly straight. They have narrow tires and typically no shocks.
If you want to ride on anything rougher than an extremely well-groomed packed earth path, get a low-end mountain bike or a hybrid with a front shock. The tires will be a bit wider and more nubbly, and this combined with the shock will slow you down a bit, but the comfort and maneuverability will more than make up for that. (Shocks generally increase your top speed on rough terrain, but decrease it on smooth terrain).
Personally, I recommend a low-end mountain bike (front shocks only) for anyone who isn't biking almost entirely in the confines of a major city.
Step 2) Go to local bike shop and ask what size frame would be good for you (bike frames are measured in the length of the saddle tube, i.e. ~ distance from your butt to the pedals).
Step 3) Chain Reaction Cycles
Back in 2009, I was in the market for a new bike. I got a racing bike made of carbon-whatever-mix -- about 10 or so pounds -- for easy transport (disclaimer: I bike every day, including during the snow in the winter).
But while talking to people about getting a bike that's easy to transport, many bike repair dudes recommended against folding bikes, because they're structurally unstable and don't last as long as other bikes.
Also, if the trip is seriously flat (and you don't plan on riding anywhere else), I'd recommend a single speed, because they're so much easier to take care of and clean (read: single speed ≠fixie).
There's a reason car manufacturers use transmissions instead of just building ever-bigger engines, and it's the same reason tourers don't ride single-speeds.
Look, the hard answer here is that the need for these things depends entirely on your situation. Only you know what you're doing, so unless you tell us about terrain, traffic, climate, etc., we can't help you all that much. I've been looking at Specialized Crosstrail Pro Disc for when I come back to the States. I ride street and occasionally trail in Chicago and Wisconsin. That bike will probably keep me going strong even if I move to NY or CA. It's the perfect thing for me. Is it the perfect thing for you? Probably not. You almost definitely don't need anything CroMo, for instance, and you probably don't need discs.
Aside from that, I'd parrot most of what everyone else here has said. Get a road/hybrid bike, make sure it's close to the right size, and is comfortable for what you intend to do. Your best bet is going to be finding a good bike shop and talking to someone who can show you everything.
There is one caveat: the bikes need minimal assembly (like attaching the wheels, tightening bolts, etc) which you can probably get taken care of at a local bike shop for less than a $100 if you don't feel confident to do it yourself.
Finally, there is mountainbikereviews.com (which, despite it's name, also reviews street / hybrid bikes). So once you find some bikes on CRC, you can look up the review / user comments and get an idea of whether there are serious faults with them.
That is pretty much all the objective advice I can give you. Remember that a good bike is a bike that is good for You.
Non-objective advice:
1) DON'T get a fixie.
2) Don't pay attention to the brand of the bike. You are essentially buying the bike for the gear that is attached to the frame.
3) The rear derailleur MUST be Shimano Deore LX or better. In general get the cheapest bike with Deore parts throughout.
4) Front suspension is NOT worth it in terms of loss of steering control (at least in the price range you are looking at)
5) Full suspension is worth it in terms of comfort (even at a cheap price point).
6) Suspension MUST be serviced approximately once a year, lest it become useless / dangerous.
7) You do NOT want to service the suspension yourself and it not cheap to have it done.
8) If you get disc brakes, don't get mechanical ones since they tend to be soft and you're better of having V-brakes for that.
Expensive components are useless to you unless you can articulate why you need them. While I have an expensive and fancy performance hybrid for distance biking, I also have a 15 year old Schwinn hardtail (with a mostly shot but still serviceable front suspension) with original gears that is just fine for trail riding and even commuting (since I can't leave my expensive bike chained up anywhere).
Super expensive full suspensions are pretty amazing. I test-ride one with an inertial dampener that minimized the performance impact. Basically, it would hold the suspension rigid if the shock came from above and didn't coincide with downward absolute movement. It was a complicated little doohickey, and I'm not entirely sure how it functioned. But, it stayed rigid through any pedal cycle, even stomping, yet compressed perfectly on drops or terrain.
(That bike was well into five figures).
I'm slowly converting my bike from a mountain bike to a hybrid setup when parts fail / wear out, and, even though I previously stated that the frame doesn't matter, I'm dreaming of one day finding an early nineties Marin Palisades Trail frame. That was a fucking brilliant frame.
If it sits between your tailbones, it's too narrow. If your tailbones are on it, but they hurt, you're likely sitting too upright: many bikeseats are designed for a forward position. If your junk hurts, or feels under pressure, replace it with a slotted seat, i.e., one with a depression down the middle. If you have pain that coincides with any seams in your pants or underwear, welcome to biking: buy seamless or offset-seam pants and underwear.
The horn of it presses against my perineum and the seat cushion is hard and there is discomfort on my tailbones. I dont think there is a way to angle the seat, though that might help.