One of the positive side effects of this awful time has been that a lot of friends have asked me for advice about buying a bike. I have given some advice on why I think that a touring bike is a great buy if you are intending to ride for day trips and want something more forgiving than a road bike or mountain bike.
But then the question comes: how to actually go about it. I am no expert on buying bikes, but I recently bought a new touring bike and have been trying to guide those friends so here are a few tips from a total amateur that I hope will come in useful. I do so on the basis of many years of riding and touring rather than any technical know how.
The bottom line though is that this is YOUR decision. You must do what is right for you. So feel free to ignore any or all of these tips if you feel right. (But great if you send me some feedback explaining why: I am open to ideas and persuasion.
1. Don’t be cheap
You may well be tempted to start cheap on the basis that you want to see whether you really ride the bike and enjoy riding before committing to a more expensive bike. Why lay out lots of money for a bike that will sit there rusting?
The problem with this logic is that if you do buy cheap, you will almost certainly end up with a bike that is so unpleasant to ride that it puts you off riding and ends up rusting. Heavy. Unwieldy. Small range of gears, forcing you to walk up hills. You will hate it and associate riding with it.
Now I don’t know how much you are earning and if I went back in time, I would certainly not advise my 20-year old student self to splash out, but if you are earning more than to pay the bills, I would really advise paying a little bit extra for a bike that gives you real pleasure.
What about second hand? Nothing wrong with it if you can be sure that the quality is guaranteed or can test it with a friend who knows what to look for. I am the very happy owner of a carbon-fibre road bike that I would certainly have not bought for new, but when the chance came to buy it off a friend for $1000, I leapt at it. It was a bit rusted but otherwise perfect.
What is a little more? It depends on the bike but I reckon that anything in the 1000-1200 dollar/ Euro range will give you real pleasure. No need to fork out more than that unless you want a decent road bike.
Put it this way: how much is that as a percentage of what you would spend on a good holiday? And yet properly maintained, it will give you rides for a good decade at least. Think of how much pleasure you will get over that time.
But that does not mean paying over the odds for a bike or accepting anything just because it is available.
2. Don’t go to the nearest bike shop and ask them what they have in stock…
This is a bad idea at the best of times. Writing in 2020, this is a horrendous idea. Right now, there is huge demand for bikes and bike shops can pretty much sell all their stock and get a fat margin on top. At best, they are trying to do their best but are overworked. Some of them however will be tempted to talk customers into whatever they can make most profit from. They have so much custom that they have little incentive to be nice or scrupulous. You could easily end up with an overpriced bike that is not what you want.
3. Do a bit of research
Don’t rush: this is an investment not an impulse buy.
First, decide what kind of bike you will need. There are an ever wider range of bikes available, but basically your choice will usually be one of the following:
- Road bike: lightweight with thin wheels, designed to go fast on roads
- Mountain bike: heavy with thick wheels and tires, designed to handle rocks and rough trails
- Hybrid/commuter bike: medium-weight bike designed to handle urban roads and bike paths
- Touring bike: medium-light bike with more upright frame, designed to carry lots of luggage over long distances
- “Fixies” or Dutch bikes: limited to one or two gears and designed for stylish riding in flat areas
OK. There are loads more categories but this is the basics. See my post about why you might want to consider a touring bike.
One thing that you ought to think about at this stage is the type of handlebars you will need. If you only ever intend to use the bike for short distances, rubber flat or ‘trek’ handlebars will be fine. But if you want to go more than say 20km or go up and down hills, your wrists and fingers will need more protection and you will want the option of being able to hunch a bit so drop handlebars get more interesting, and if you plan to tour, you will want slightly more upright drop handlebars that will give you a choice of positions. Do some research.
Do some research online to find some bikes that you might like and then start seeing if any bike shops in your area have them in stock. When I was looking for a new touring bike, I Googled “best touring bikes” and read through the various reviews until I was clear which model I wanted to try. I then looked for distributors on the company website and started emailing those shops to see whether they had any in stock. What was reassuring was that the shop that got back to me asked me the right questions: my height to determine whether they had one the right size.
And yes, you do need the bike to be the right size.
4. Be patient
Suppose that you do all this and they don’t get back to you or don’t have any the right size. First, consider asking them whether they intend to get any in stock in the near future. Usually, providing that the bike is a recent model, they should be thinking of it. The current bike wave will ease off in the coming months once the weather gets miserable again. Ironically, that moment can often give you your best riding. Be patient and persistent: better to wait a few more months and get something that gives you real pleasure.
This doesn’t mean waiting years for the right bike: of course you want to get riding soon. What it does mean is finding something that is right for you rather than settling for something that you don’t enjoy and therefore won’t ride.
5. Go for a test ride
Hooray! They got back to you and they have the bike that you want in stock. Time to plan a test ride. They will usually ask you to provide some form of ID or credit card to keep behind the counter while you go off.
I would bring with you a multi tool or set of Allen keys. When I went recently, they set the saddle at an uncomfortable height to ride, so after riding it for 100m or so, I got off the bike, unscrewed the seat post and lowered the saddle.
If you can, take it for a ride with as many different types of terrain or road that you can find – though this might not be possible. Ideally, you want to test it along roads, bike path, perhaps a bit of track and on both the flat and on hills.
You want to test out the brakes first and see how comfortable you are with them.
Then it is time to go through the gears: how easy is it to change them? How smoothly do they change? And of course, you want to see just how low the bottom gear is. Will it be enough to get you up a steep hill with a bit of luggage in your panniers?
Then you want to see how comfortable you are pedalling in general, though don’t worry too much about the pedals as you can easily change them. How comfortable is the seat? How much suspension is there? In general, is the bike fun and intuitive to ride? All bikes take a while to get used to so don’t be put off if the gears work differently to what you are used to.
What it all comes down to is does it do what YOU want it to do? This is a big purchase. Does it give you pleasure? Does it make you want to ride it?
Take your time and don’t let them bounce you into buying. If the bike is sold by the time you decide to buy it, that is THEIR problem because at this point you have the option of ordering it direct from the manufacturer and the bike shop loses the commission.
If you don’t feel absolutely right, try out a few different models.
If you decide to buy
Congratulations! Arrange with the shop when the best time is to pick it up. Be aware that most bike shops will not sell it with pedals.
This sounds a bit weird right? Here is the thinking of the bike mechanic: imagine buying a suit and having the shoes come with it whether you want them or not or have a perfectly decent pair of your own, yet still having them factored into the price. You’d find that a bit weird.
Pedals are perfectly easy to buy and obviously if you already have a pair of your own from an older bike, you can use those.
The bike shop will try to flog you a lot of other stuff to go with the bike. The only things that you really need are a few spare inner tubes and ideally some spare spokes.
You should also ask the shop to give you as many of the packing materials that the bike was packed with and specifically any front fork or disc brake spacers in case you need to pack the bike for travel.
That’s it! Enjoy!
Published by