I’ve recently discovered that I’m fat. Okay, I’m not pre-Subway Jared huge, but I could stand to lose two or three or twenty pounds. Besides going to the free company gym (which I should do more often than I do now … which is never) I was considering buying a bicycle to get a little exercise.
Here’s the thing … I want to do this on a budget. I’m most probably looking at a Craigslist buy or something like that. I don’t really want to spend more than, say, $200 tops. $100 would be far more tempting.
My problem is that it’s been decades since I owned a bike. So far, I’ve seen what seems like a couple of good bargains locally, but I don’t know shifters from shinola about them.
I guess my point is while I definitely don’t want some Lance Armstrong racer, neither do I want to end up getting some hard-core mountain bike that will be wasted on the streets.
As I’m sure you know, bicycle prices vary from $99 at Wally World to a hundred times that or more at a bike store. You don’t want the Walmart special. Period. I know someone will come by and proclaim their love for their trusty Huffy and how it is entirely adequate to their use & etc. You don’t want one. You don’t have to spend a ton of money, though. There’s a steep curve of improvement in performance up to about $500 (new prices), and after that diminishing returns set in.
Cheap bikes have numerous faults, weight often being pointed out at the top of the list. But weight really isn’t the chief fault of the department store bike. The chief fault is that they are next to impossible to tune the shifters and brakes so that everything works smoothly. And they’re heavy.
That said, $200 should pick you up an adequate bike used if you know what to look for.
Signs of a decent bike vs. a crappy cheap one:
Decent bikes have aluminum ally rims, crappy cheap ones have chromed steel rims. Weight at the rims has far more impact on how snappy the bike feels than weight elsewhere, as you have to accelerate it both linearly and rotationally when speeding up. Plus alloy rims provide a superior braking surface and are less likely to taco.
Decent bikes have a rear derailleur that looks something like this, while cheap crappy ones will have something that looks like this. Aside from being far more robust, the better one pivots at an angle to track the angle of the cogs. The cheap derailleur gets further away from the cogs as you move to smaller (higher) gears, with the result that due to chain flex you have to move the shifter past the gear you want to select in order to get it to shift, and then re-centre over your gear to avoid chain rub.
Decent bikes will have a one-piece forged spider on the crank side of the pedals, where cheap bikes will have a two-piece crank.
There’s lots more details, but those should be enough to cull out the department store crap from the merely inexpensive but ridable.
If you’re interested in brute strength exercise bicycling, get a bike with fat knobby tires. If you’re interested in enjoying a ride for its own sake, get a bike with thin (1" - 11/4") road tires. Fat tire (city and mountain) bikes offer a huge increase in rolling resistance. When I was cycling, I could easily do 60 miles on a road bike. A mountain bike left me gasping in like 10-15.
OTOH, if you’re doing this purely for exercise, you might want to consider a stationary bike. Much cheaper.
Craigslist is one good place to look for used bicycles. You will enormously improve your chances of getting what you want at a decent price if you can find a bike-savvy friend to assist you in looking at what’s on offer.
Gorsnak is on the right track. Beware that cheapo bike makers have started aluminum plating steel rims so they look like alloy. It does provide a better braking surface than the chrome, until it wears off, which is instantly, then the rims rust.
He is also correct about the shifting EXCEPT that they now put indexed shifters on everything, so it is even harder to compensate for a crappy derailleur than with the old friction shifters. (indexed shifting only really became practical when SunTour’s patent on the slant paralellagram expired…not the only thing, but an essential piece of the whole)
Next: some really cheap bikes are still using one-piece (AKA Ashtabula) forged steel cranksets. The cranks are strong enough, if heavy, but the pressed steel and case hardened bearing cups that go along with them won’t hold up to a super-sized adult.
My own input:
At this price level avoid suspension of any kind (except possibly a suspension seat post). The suspension will be crap at this price, adds a LOT of weight, and forces the maker to cut corners elsewhere to cover the cost of the suspension.
Beware that the rights to the names of many well-respected bike makers of the past have been bought up by Pacific Cycles or similar. Schwinn, Motobecane, Windsor, and Mercier all fall into this group. Some of these bikes are decent for the price, but they also make some total crap for the big-box stores.
I’m pretty sure nobody has ever been riding along and thought “Wow, I soooo wish I had spent just a little less money when I bought this bike.” Your price target is a little below the knee on the price/quality curve. $50 more could result in a noticeably better bike, and $100 most certainly better, and possibly markedly so.
When you buy quality, you only feel the pain once. Buy crap and you’ll know it every time it doesn’t shift right, every time the brakes drag because the wheels won’t stay true, and every time you groan and shudder to a stop using the flimsy brakes.
I have a friend that is a pretty good athlete, but is well I guess the word is cheap. She wanted to take up mountain biking. So she went and bought a $200 full suspension “mountain bike”
She complained to me that she was having trouble riding it. I was traveling to her area, so I put my bikes on my car and arranged a training (learn to ride, ride)
I put her on my mountain bike and we set out to the local park.
During that very short ride, I found the bike would not shift, did not accelerate worth a damn, did not handle and I fell over due to the chain jamming on a short uphill.
On the other hand, she looked like Missy Giove on my bike.
Bottom line, don’t buy a big box store cheap bike.
Thanks for the tips. I wasn’t trying to just start a fluffy conversation … I really don’t know shit about bicycles anymore. You know the old saying, once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget? I’ll be putting that chestnut to the stress test for sure. I don’t think I’ve been on one in more than a decade.
While I’m looking for exercise, I do want a little city transportation and fun as well, so an exercise bike is right out.
I’m curious about brands. I don’t really know a good one when I see one. However, there seems to be a plethora of Treks on Craigslist and from what I can tell, they look like pretty good little units.
Thanks. The first piece of advice I got here (admittedly from someone who knows less about bikes than I do) was … “You can get a new one at Walmart for $200.”
See cannondale went recently - the parent company (Dorel, who also own pacific cycles) moved production to Taiwan as of last month. This is not a bad thing in itself, but looking at whats happened to those other brands you mention, it’s only a matter of time before we see cannondales in toy shops. Sad to see, I’ve owned a lot of cannondales over the years and they’ve been great bikes.
Yeah, trek is a good brand. If you can find one in your price range, you probably won’t go wrong.
Do you know about bike sizing? First thing you should do is go to a bike shop. Tell them what you’re looking for and how you intend to ride. They should be able to tell you what kind of bike you want and what size will fit you. Then, use that information to narrow your search on Craigslist.
If you feel bad about using the bike shop that way, you’ll need gear and accessories. Once you get a bike, buy your helmet other neccesities from them.
Well, just try to follow my advice better than I did.
I ended up walking out with a brand new Gary Fisher. I don’t regret it in the slightest, but I really hadn’t planned on buying. The bike fit so well, and the salesman got the bike down to a price I was happy with.
Go with Giant, Kona, Trek, Specialized, an older Cannondale, Orange, Iron Horse or something akin to that.
Avoid Raleigh, Saracen and low end GT. They’re more about image
Front forks wise, go for Rock Shox or Marzocchi. DT swiss will be out of your budget as would most manitou’s. AVOID Zoom and RST forks, they’re absolutely pants.
Try eBay or Craigslist, get yourself a decent 2nd hand bike. DON’T buy a new bike at your budget, it’ll be crap.
Also, try picking up an MTB magazine, or joining an MTB forum. You should pick up what’s good and what’s not pretty quickly.
You can probably get a decent hybrid. They have frames similar to mountain bikes but tires that are thinner (not as super-thin as a road/racing bike though) and more importantly the wheels have a greater diameter, so they are a nice ride if your plans are zipping around the city because they are smooth and have nice acceleration. In the winter you can switch your slicks for a more aggressively treaded winter tire. The more upright posture and straight handle bars make hybrids less intimidating in traffic than a road bike too.
I used to ride a mountain bike as my around town beater. It is more of a workout, but if you switch the tires to slicks rather than the aggressive tires for the trails, it feels closer to a hybrid.
Treks are okay. If the components are decent (no one has switched the derailler for a crappy one etc.), you probably won’t be unhappy with it as a starter bike.
It’s also good to shop in the early spring when there is still snow on the ground because a lot of bike shops try to get rid of last year’s stock, so I got a $900 bike for $650. You may be able to get a reasonable price for a new beginner bike too.
Just make sure your bike is fitted to you. So the right frame size and a geometry that feels right, and then make sure it’s tweaked for your proportions. The seat can be adjusted for up/down, forward/backward, and tilt so you rest on your sit bones without pinching yer gnads. The stem of the handle bars can also be adjusted to be closer or further from you or the rise can be adjusted if you feel you’re leaning up or down too much.
Gorsnak - Jeebus! That cheapo derailler pic made my eyes hurt! :eek:
I’d also recommend a hybrid bike. I’m not an expert on bikes either, but they’re fantabulous. My brother picked up something like the Specialized Crossroads Sport a few years back, which I would absolutely ride all day. The tires are wide enough not to worry about random punctures, but narrow and big enough to roll easily. The posture is great too; sitting up and back, you feel more relaxed about what’s going on, and you make better use of the (extremely comfortable and shock-absorbed) seat. Since it was last year’s model, he got it for something like $500. (CAD, see Location ppl!)
I was doing some downhill in Whistler last year and was lucky enough to be there when the town rental store was closing, and picked up a Devinci St. Tropez for $100. It’s not quite as nice (and despite being nearly-new there’s something slightly wrong with the rear hub), but of the bikes I own it’s the one I use to get to work when the weather co-operates.
Other than that… wear a helmet, try before you buy, and don’t let your chain rust.
Hybrids. That’s what I think I’m looking for. From my surfing Craigslist yesterday, when I ran across one of those, that’s what I was thinking of for myself.
In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a Trek hybrid available for my price range … although it would be about an hour drive for me to get there.
I’m heartened though. I think I may actually get this done before summer fully arrives.
