Sometimes (not often) a person will ask me about what they can do to get into bicycling, or they'll put out a few feelers about getting started bicycle commuting and do I have any advice? I start out with "what kind of bicycle do you have" and inevitably it's old and heavy and does not fit. Then I hand over my very technical and specific advice: "Get a nice bicycle." I smile hopefully. The person shuffles their feet.
They tell me that before they spend any money they want to first see if they'll do any bicycling and this is when my heart breaks a little. Bicycling is not a lot of fun on an old poorly tuned vehicle that does not fit. The gears don't work. It's heavy. It's slow. I appreciate the sense of not spending money on something you will not use but you have to appreciate that if you had to push your car to work each day you might not want to drive anywhere either.
So then they ask me what kind of bicycle to get as if I knew shit from shinola on the topic, which I do not. But I still have an answer and the name of that answer is "get a bicycle that you like." The bicycle that you like is the one that you ride. And while we're on the topic, to any engineers out there still fighting the text editing wars? Vi or emacs? Same goes for you. The right tool for the job is the one that works for you.
How do you figure out which is a bicycle that you like? Go to a bicycle store. Figure out what size of bicycle is correct for you. Try a lot of different bicycles. You can take the bicycle outside after completing some paperwork showing you are not a car thief and then you can really ride. Definitely do not just sit on the bike in some department store. Come in your bike outfit and ride and keep riding until you meet the bicycle that feels great. The brakes will be in some place that makes sense for your hands. Your back won't hurt. The gears feel just right. Now go home. Come back a few days later and ride the bicycle you liked all over again. Do you still love it? Are you muttering endearments under your breath? That's the one. Buy it.
Also for the sake of your romantic life, spring for a decent bicycle seat.
+1 for the last line!
ReplyDeleteJust went through this with my B-I-l who wanted to buy a Christmas bike for my SiL. The tension between buying a "starter bike" and a bike that will be used and enjoyed is a constant problem.
ReplyDeleteAlso a problem for a lot of people is not having a lot of options at the stores nearby. Boston is lousy with option, but a lot of placesnarent so lucky. I'm a big fan of used bikes for newbies, but they can need more care and feeding.
For me, the right "starter" bike was a folding bike. I didn't want to ride very far at first, and so I'd put the bike in my trunk, drive almost all the way to work, and then ride. I was able to gradually increase my distance, and it's also a really good ride.
DeleteCincinnati is lucky enough to have a great bike co-op that has an annual used-bike sale. We typically receive a few donated bikes every week, year round, and it’s more than we can use for our Adopt-a-Bike program. So every spring we fix some of them up for the sale and sell them for $30 to $60. It’s a great way to lure cyclists-to-be into the fold: the bikes are inexpensive, and the co-op is low key, so there’s none of the pressure you can sometimes feel in bike shops. And folks can really take their time trying different bikes and talking to co-op members. At the end of the day we’ve gotten a lot of new people on bikes, but we’ve also given them a sense of community, which hopefully makes it more likely that they’ll stick with it.
DeleteI've found a local bicycle shop that does a good (but not needlessly complicated) job of matching a noob to a bike and fitting it well. If I went to a bike shop where they used emacs I would back slowly out the door and find a shop where they used a sensible and not needlessly complex editor like vi or even npp.
ReplyDeleteI'm all about vi myself. It's the go-to place for editing router configurations and there isn't a machine on the network that is so hosed that it can't start vi. Ever since seeing Contraption Captain configure his .emacs to clean the cat box and brush his teeth I've had to acknowledge that there are other options with utility.
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