Want to get out riding (again) but baffled about what you need to get going? Good for you and you are not the only one to be a bit confused.
Below, I have set out a quick guide to the kit you will need to get going and the extra stuff that you might consider now or later to have an even better time.
I have broken it down into what you need/might consider for commuting/ getting around town, and what you need/ might consider for longer exercise or day rides. And I have broken it down into bike gear and clothes
It needn’t cost much to put together but sometimes a little upfront investment can save you a lot down the road (and make for a better experience). If you don’t have the budget or are unsure about how much you will enjoy riding, then you can always get something cheap now and replace it later if circumstances change. The most important thing is to get out riding…
The essentials for bike commuting/riding around town
The essentials for exercise or day rides
- All the above and:
- Bottles and bottle holders
- A multitool
- A mini pump, tyre levers and spare inner tube
- Small first aid kit
- Gloves
Some additional bits of gear that will make your ride even more enjoyable
- A handlebar bag or basket
- A bike security tie
- A bike stand
- Grease
- Bike GPS
- Toe clips
- Lycra shorts and jersey
- Leggings
- Arm warmers
- Sunglasses
Bike gear
The bike. If you are just intending to use it for commuting/ getting around town, pretty much anything apart from a road bike will work here but a hybrid bike will likely be best for you. (Decathlon defines a hybrid bike as “a mix of a mountain bike and a road bike. [They] feature all the best bits of each to create an all-rounder that’s comfortable and suitable for riding over various types of terrain. [… They] are strong and sturdy, making them great for a bit of off-roading. But they also have fairly thin tyres and a wide range of gearing so they’re speedy on the roads too. [They] will usually come with mudguards and pannier racks for all-weather protection, and disc brakes for fast and effective braking.”) Thanks Decathlon.
Unless your commute offers secure storage at both ends (i.e. a guarded parking space or private garage), a second hand or older bike might be a good idea here to discourage theft.
If you are getting out – or thinking of getting out – on longer exercise or day rides and might even think about bike touring, a gravel or touring bike can be a great idea. You can read a lot of confusing articles about the difference between all three but for the non-technical – me – a gravel bike is lighter, stronger and lower down, better able to handle rougher paths or roads and go further, and a touring bike is somewhere between the two. I use my trusted old tourer Randy for commuting and exercise rides and have no problems.
Depending on the type of bike, anywhere from €1000 up will get you a genuinely nice bike, though if you can afford it, €1500 – €2000 will get you something really joyful that you will want to ride as much as possible. Beyond that, unless you are looking at a road bike, you gain less for your money. Look at it this way: suppose you use that bike for 10 years and ride at least 20 times on it per year – which is less than twice a month – you are going to be paying less than 10 Euro for every time you use it and probably much less.
The lock.
I’ve read a lot of theories about this and how much it should cost. Apparently, Derbyshire Police recommend that you pay 10% of the cost of your bike on a lock. I am a bit sceptical. Ultimately if your bike is valuable enough and is parked in a place where thieves can get to it without being disturbed for long enough, it will disappear.
And then there is the weight. If you are only using for commuting or short rides, a heavier lock such as a chain lock or a heavy D-lock is probably a good idea.
If you intend to go on longer rides as well, a lighter lock might be more practical. I carry a reasonably sturdy D-lock yet also sufficiently lightweight D-lock that will deter the casual thief, locked securely through the frame and ideally front wheel in a very public spot with not much leverage to get a bolt-cutter through. Together with the bike looking dirty and worn enough that its market value is not superhigh, this will deter all but the most desperate thieves.
If you are thinking of going on day rides, want to minimise weight/space and are likely to be close to the bike at all times – i.e. you are locking it while you have a coffee, snack or ice cream – it might be worth buying a cheaper lightweight lock to take with you for those rides, leaving the heavier lock at home. I take a Hiplok security tie. It doesn’t cost very much.
Pannier racks and bags
I really recommend buying a rack, especially if you are commuting. You can carry it all on your back, but it will be harder work, give you less stability, and you will arrive sweatier. Get a decent rear rack – it doesn’t cost much and often comes with the bike – and invest in a pair of decent bike bags. They will carry everything you want, will stabilize the bike, and if you get the right type, will keep everything dry. Perfect for commuting, perfect for day trips, perfect for touring. I have always used Ortlieb bags and been very happy with them but there are other good bags and manufacturers.
I don’t use one as my valuables are stored out of sight in the anonymity of the pannier bag, but a lot of my women friends swear by having a handlebar basket to put their handbag. If it makes you feel safer, do it. For light day rides, instead of taking a full pannier, I often use a handlebar bag to fit in wallet, phone, keys, food, first aid kit, multitool, tyre levers and so on.
Bottles and bottle holders
Cycling is thirsty work in all seasons and you drink more than you expect even when riding around town. If you are only using for commuting/riding around town, one should be enough. A plastic holder will be better for your bottles/ more lightweight.
If you are doing more than that, I really recommend having two bottle holders and bottles.
For the bottles, cheap is fine as they degrade over time, though if you are riding in the thick of summer or winter, having at least one thermally insulated bottle is useful to keep your water cold or your tea hot. I am currently using Deboyo Elite Race 550ml bottles, available from Decathlon. I try to get bottles as big as possible:. Remember to wash them regularly – ideally in a machine – and always after adding anything other than water.
A bike stand
This is totally optional but worth considering, especially if you plan to do day rides. It doesn’t cost much, can be fitted by your bike shop, and will save you a lot of bother when stopping by the side of the road.
Lights
Good news: bike lighting is an area where technology progresses every year, leading to lighter, smaller, brighter and more rechargeable lights.
For getting around town, the key is having lights that will be visible to others and are easily removable from your bike. There are loads of great brands.
If you are doing evening exercise rides and are likely to be riding on unlit paths or roads, it is worth investing in a more powerful front light with a longer battery. I use a Trek Ion Pro RT.
Even if you don’t intend to ride in the dark, it is worth having some in case you get caught out by a storm or unexpected road tunnel.
Pump, tire levers, spare inner tube(s), oil, grease
It happens to every cyclist. If you are lucky, you get a slow puncture that only properly deflates when you get home. But if you are unlucky, it happens in the middle of a forest with a torrential thunderstorm approaching.
Unless I am on a commuting or exercise ride where at a pinch, I can walk it home or hop on public transport, I always carry a hand pump, tire levers and a spare inner tube or two, enough to get me out of trouble. By all means, take the punctured inner tube home with you and repair it at your leisure but having a spare inner tube with you will spare you half an hour of trying to find the hole and then gluing it shut.
Replacing the inner tube is much easier than it looks though no cyclist likes replacing a rear one. Either get a friend to show you or watch a YouTube video. I cycled many years without realising that life would be much easier if I released the brakes before attempting to remove the wheel…
If you are just using the bike for commuting, getting around town and short exercise rides close to home, you don’t need to bother with the mini-pump. Instead, I would invest in a decent foot pump. It will make your life much easier. Every month or so or if you feel the tires getting soft, give them a quick squeeze and if necessary, reinflate them. You will find the pressure marked on the side of the outer tyre.
If I don’t write ‘oil’ as an essential, my local bike shop will kill me… You can read the orthodox version of how often you should clean and oil your bike [here]. For what it is worth, I reckon giving your chain a quick clean once every two months – or more often in winter – is fine, and giving it a quick dose of oil every now and again.
If you are doing day rides and starting to really look after your bike, a bit of grease every now and again will work wonders.
Multi-tool.
This is a compact set of bike tools, a bit like a Swiss Army knife. Sad to say, bolts come loose while you are on a bike, so it is extremely useful to have one with you to make quick repairs or adjustments. You don’t need this if you are just commuting or riding around town, but if you are doing longer rides, this is great to have – or have a friend with you who has – and is essential for touring.
Bell
In many countries, this is obligatory. I resisted getting a bell for many years on the grounds that they take up a lot of space on the handlebars and that many people are so absorbed in their own music collection that they would not hear me when I used it anyway.
The second half of that is sadly true. I am regularly dismayed by the number of pedestrians and cyclists who pay not a blind bit of attention to the noise of a bell behind them and continue merrily blocking the path.
So they don’t always work, but when they do, it saves you a lot of hassle. And on the space front, I have come across a model of bell made by Crane which is small, loud and – good for a mal-coordinated person like me – operates vertically rather than left to right, which seems much more intuitive.
Be a nice cyclist: a quick ring when you are about 5-10 seconds away to alert people to your presence, not when you are on top of them.
Bike GPS
OK, so this is a bit more costly, and you do not absolutely need it. For most of the time since the dawn of cycling, people happily rode with just a map for directions and many still do. At a later stage, they added basic odometers to their bikes to measure how far and how fast they rode.
But life has moved on, and there is a generation of bike GPS that combine all the advantages of the odometer with the map and have a few more tricks up their sleeves, and they are improving all the time.
Why buy one? Put simply, it will make your rides more pleasurable. You can plan your routes online before you go, knowing exactly where the hills are and able to plot the most enjoyable way to your destination. Out on the ride, you can cruise along or let it rip downhill, safe in the knowledge that you will be warned in advance of any turn, and hugely useful when navigating through a town or city. Much better than having to huddle over a soggy map in pouring rain. It is a huge advantage to be able to look at the height profile and see whether any hills are coming up or how far you still have to go. And the latest models have got a much better rerouting capability in case the road is closed. And at the end of it, the GPS will export your ride back to the website so that you have all the data that you could possibly want on where you went and how fast.
They still aren’t perfect: like car GPS, unless properly controlled, they have a habit of sending you through muddy paths or along badly cobbled hellholes, over all, they are a great improvement.
Yes, you could use your smartphone – and companies such as Quad Lock sell very good mounts – but why waste valuable battery or have it exposed to all the elements – sun, rain, wind – when you can have a much smaller piece of kit doing it all for you?
Small first aid kit
If you are going out for day rides, it is good to have a small kit with bandages and antiseptic wipes, just in case.
Toe clips
Toe clips are the happy halfway house between standard pedals and bike shoes, giving some of the efficiency gains but without the disadvantages of the latter for those of us who just don’t feel comfortable firmly locked onto an unstable piece of metal liable to brake at any moment, and yes, that is me, even before my MANY accidents.
For a princely €5, yes, that’s FIVE Euros, you can fit small plastic toe clips onto the front of your pedals, holding your feet in a steady place and not wasting the energy on the upswing of your pedal stroke.
Of course, the pros and the Strava Queens will sneer at you, and it’s true that you don’t gain all the vaunted 10% efficiency gain of the suicide shoes, but when it comes to accelerating away from a traffic light that has just turned green, you will be halfway up the road before they have managed to click their right shoe into place.
Clothes
A helmet
There’s no two ways about it: brain damage is just not a beautiful look… You might only need the protection of a helmet once in your life, but when you do, you will be grateful. I have had that incident, having to brake abruptly in central Washington, DC because of a crazy driver cutting into the lane ahead of the car ahead of me. My collarbone took the brunt of it, but in the momentum, my head also tapped onto the tarmac. Zero damage but without a helmet it could have been so different.
A former work colleague of mine came off her bike and was not wearing one. She had migraines for over four months and it could have been a lot worse. Grow up and wear the damn helmet.
Bike gloves
Yes, I know: you’ll look like a nonce, like you’re taking this seriously, but trust me, you need gloves the minute you start doing more than a short ride. Why? Because when you ride, three parts of your anatomy are in touch with the bike: your feet, your bottom, but also your wrists. And in contrast to the bottom and the feet, your wrists are getting shaken around like you would not believe and that is even if you manage to avoid a downhill on cobbles. Give them some love. Give them some protection.
I use different gloves for different seasons, but really all you need is one pair of fingerless gloves and one pair of warmer gloves with padding.
A rain jacket
You could use a standard waterproof jacket as a standby but a decent bike rain jacket is a good investment. How is it different? Tailoring. A bike jacket will be longer at the back and should have a zippable pocket at the rear. When it rains, you will be hunched forward over the bike so your stomach will be compressed and your back elongated. It’s the difference between a drenched back and a dry one. A rear pocket is also ideal for carrying wallet, keys and any other essential documents like train tickets. Ideally, the jacket should also have a smaller pocket at the front left top to put your phone/passport in, but many don’t.
It is worth paying for something middle of the range: €70-100. You don’t need anything fancy but you do need a good brand and it to be waterproof and breathable (and ideally luminous). I once paid the price for buying a cheap jacket: I sweated, the material got drenched, and the rear pocket secured only with a Velcro strip collected every drip of water that poured down my back… The very next day, I found the nearest bike shop and replaced it with a much nicer jacket.
I now have three: one for winter, one for spring and autumn, and one for the occasional shower in summer, but when you are starting, begin with one: a good thick jacket like the one on the left. You can build from there.
Lycra shorts
Yes. Really? Yes really. When I tell friends who are starting cycling that they should wear Lycra shorts, I get looks of horror and disbelief, followed by a rapid shaking of the head. No no no no no no…. Let’s face it: Lycra has a bad image, literally. Unless your groin would bear comparison with a well-preserved statue of a Roman god or goddess, the look is not flattering. This is why most non-professional cyclists wear black to camouflage it and prevent other road users from laughing. And yes, it has that air of trying too hard, like you’re actually taking this riding thing seriously rather than larking about.
Funnily enough their attitude starts to change when they come back from their first long ride with buttocks so red and raw that they look as though they have been sandpapered…
Lycra shorts were invented for a reason. Actually, several reasons. Buttock padding. Reduced friction when pedalling. Sweat absorption. Insulation. Drying fast. Sometimes I am out on a ride, get rained on and by the time I am back, my shorts are dry again, and all that time I have been as warm as possible. And yes, being more aerodynamic. Laugh at that last one all you will but wait until you have spent ten minutes slogging up a seemingly endless hill. When you come to the downhill, you will want to benefit from every single metre of that climb, head down, hunched forward and with no appetite whatsoever for your shorts to be whipping about like a Spanish galleon.
Buy a pair. Try them out. You will not look back. If you do, you’ll see a bunch of people sniggering at you, but never mind…
These days, bib shorts are all the rage. I prefer ‘normal’ shorts because they are a lot easier for you when you have an urgent call of nature.
Lycra jersey
Again, yes, you will look like an idiot off the bike: bike jerseys are extremely unflattering, designed as they are shorter at the front.
But on the bike: sweatproof, easily drying, and insulating, and with back pockets for your keys/phone. Really recommended for those out on longer rides.
Leggings
For cooler months, a pair of leggings is pretty essential. I buy lightweight ones from Decathlon that fit very nicely.
Socks
Honestly, you can wear pretty much anything but the faster they dry, the better. I have two sets of socks: short and lightweight for summer
Arm warmers
If you only ride in thick summer, you will not need these, but if you ride in the shoulder seasons – and really autumn and spring are the best times to ride – they are very useful indeed. In those seasons, it can start or end cold but be quite hot in the middle of your ride and your forearms really feel it. Rather than having to put on your rain jacket which can be excessive, arm warmers give you a bit more warmth. They are also ideal for when you have a descent down a long hill.
Bike sunglasses
You can wear standard sunglasses but it is really useful to have something tightly fitting that will not slide off your nose when you start sweating.
Decathlon sell plenty of cheap versions. It is good to get a variety, including clear ones for windy days.
So that’s all… It sounds like a lot but get riding and you will see the benefits.
In the pages below, I have set out other advice for getting going again:
- Some tips to get you riding again;
- Advice on what to wear for each season;
- A guide to planning a day ride using Ride With GPS.
Leave a Reply