Buying a bike

A Semi-Beginner's experience

I thought I knew all about bikes. I willingly threw out advice to family and others on what bike to buy. After all, I'd been cycling for years, owned several bikes, toured and tried them all out at some stage. Hell, I'd even had a go off a recumbent.
But late in 2004, as I realised that I was about to drift into serious cycling, I began also to realise how little I knew about what direction to take.

This much I knew: I was 41 years old, reasonably fit, more or less normal weight for my height and was considering a 5 day cycle trip from Mizen Head to Malin Head, about 560 Km. My everyday bike was a hardtail heavyweight mountain bike, of the type churned out by Falcon during the nineties and badged by a now defunct Dublin bike shop. Unstoppable and probably unsteal-able it was a butt-ugly lump of black iron and rust with a gear low enough to climb an ESB pole. It did fine for the 50 Km Sheep's Head trip (the one that led to the plan for The Big Trip), though I broke no records and felt as worn out as the bike afterwards. But for a while I considered using that one for the trip.

Though I also realized that I knew little enough about training, I felt that it had to involve lots of cycling. ABC "Always Be Cycling" (stolen and mangled from Glengarry Glen Ross). But the evenings were closing in and Ireland it gets dark before 5pm in the dead of winter, so for everyday training I began doing 50 minute spins at lunchtime. Fortunate (hah!) to work at the top of a 100m hill and only 2Km from sea level meant that I would at least get some good hill training. So I brought the clunker to work and at weekends used a strange bike that I found at the bottom of the garden when I moved house.

Eventually I knew that this not working out. I was the owner of a pair of over-heavy unreliable klunkers. Neither was going to take me to the other end of the country.

Internet research told me: it's a choice between a hybrid and a road bike. The hybrid choice seem more natural. The only modern-ish road bike I'd seen was Chris's second hand model, a terrifyingly geared greyhound of a yoke. I borrowed Tim's Trek 7300 for a lunchtime spin and it seemed to dance up the grinding hill of Cathedral Road. I want one of them!!!

And yet... A road bike would be faster. A road bike looks cooler. A road bike enables multiple positions with the dropped handlebars. A road bike is not too far away from the 10 speed racer of the 1980's and I'd travelled miles on various models during that decade. And living in the windiest country in Europe means that sometimes it's good to keep the head down.

I noticed a rare model - the tourer. Currently deeply unfashionable, it features a wide gear ratio, panniers, mudguards and a "touring geometry". Popular models are manufactured by Dawes and Tifosi. Review sites couldn't seem to reach a consensus on the Dawes and there was no local dealer to try out. Tifosi was a bit outside of my budget. Non-touring road bikes generally couldn't take panniers or mudguards and had scary gear ratios.

To make matters even more confusing, with Christmas coming, the local bike dealers were carrying nothing but kids' bikes. If I wanted a bike soon, it would have to bought somewhere other than Cork (unless I was prepared to choose from a very narrow range). And they certainly didn't stock tourers.

Things are a bit better in Dublin. A number of large bike shops have their own websites. I found a site called www.bikebits.ie that sold Fuji bikes. And there was an entry level road bike with holes for a pannier rack and triple chainwheel.

I continued to look at reviews, especially www.roadbikereview.com . But you need to be careful here. In practice most bikes will get a good review. The Trek hybrids were highly praised, but noticeably by short-distance and commuter cyclists. The Fuji road bikes were well rated, with ex-hardtail riders featuring strongly. The message was, these are bikes that can be taken out on the road and pushed hard.

I took a deep breath and went for the radical option. I phoned Alastair in bikebits. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I bought the second-from-entry-level road bike, the 2004 Fuji Finest. Triple chainwheel and pannier drilled frame - the mudguard problem I could solve later. I went for it and the postman delivered it a few days later.

No problem putting the bike together and the real first spin was from Cork to Killeagh and back - about 80 Km. The bike was lively and very responsive. Soon I was going faster than I had gone in a long time. Fifteen minutes into the journey I turned to Chris and said: "To think I could have ended up buying a feckin' hybrid...!!".

I've given up worrying about mudguards. Because I dress up to cycle, I'm not particularly trying to stay clean. So I haven't bought any. And to sum up:

Buy a hybrid if
* Your spins are no more than about 50 Km
* You need to keep relatively clean and dry
* You cycle a lot in a city
* You cycle a lot on bad roads (if this is the case, then also consider get a bike with suspension)

Buy a road bike if
* You like long spins on good hard roads.
* Your friends ride road bikes and you want to keep up with them
* You like going fast
* You dress up in your best Lycra and you accept you're going to get mucky.

Neil O' Keeffe - March 2005