BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

What price range are you looking, and is your ride all paved or some unpaved trails.

Would you be interested in borrowing a bike, just to get started?

I dunno, brags, if I was dealing with a 2-mile commute, I wouldn't worry about the commute when picking a bike. Get something you'll enjoy riding for fun -- no matter what that is, you'll have a great time on that commute. Just make sure whatever bike you buy, get some lights. IMHO, good lights are non-negotiable for commuting.

Thanks for the feedback. How much do a reasonably need to be looking to spend for something reliable if I start to ride longer? I'd like to have something I can grow into if that makes sense.

I visited a shop, and they were pushing hard for something in the $750-$1000 range that would have disc brakes and an internal gear hub. Worth the money?

^that seems like a freakin lot o money for a 2 mile commute for a newbie. Unless you are wealthy, you could get a nice used bike or an all right entry level commuter bike for half that and ride it into the ground. By that time, you'd be in a better position to know what kind of riding you really like to do & treat yourself to an upgrade.

My 2 cents.

Seemed excessive to me too, that's but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Try some other shops. Iron City, Thick, anything not on Sq Hill.

[edit] But, if you have a good idea of what you want, and enough money, then that's not necessarily excessive. You can just Get Around for a lot less than that for starters if you need to.

My first bike (for a 6 mile commute) cost me $20, and lasted me through the winter of snowmageddon with very little regular upkeep*.

*Disclaimer: I bought it from one of the managers at work, who's hobby was rescuing and fixing bikes from the garbage. I changed the brake pads occasionally, but did very little maintenance otherwise. I wouldn't recommend this method though - my gears and brakes were non-functional by the end, and I had my bottom bracket completely fall apart on me. ball bearings everywhere.

Still, you definitely don't need to spend that much money, at least in my opinion. But I'm a cheap bastard.

I would start with either a used or lower cost bike, but make sure it fits you. Buying from a reputable local-bike-shop (LBS) will help make sure you get not only the right size frame, but that the handlebars, seat, reach, etc. gets adjusted properly for your body.

Even a high end $3k bike will be miserable if it doesn’t fit you properly. But DO buy good accessories such as lights, helmet, and clothing. You probably won’t notice the ceramic bearings, but a good raincoat is heavenly. And most of the accessories will move over to a newer better bike when the time comes to upgrade rides. LBS’s make money on these things too, so don’t feel pressured into buying too much bike. And don’t buy a bike just because it’s on sale, unless you were going to buy it at full price, otherwise it’s probably not the right bike IMHO.

A new bike in a bike shop is most likely going to be "reasonably" priced. The question of worth is up to the buyer. If the thought of spending $750 on something you are unfamiliar with did not send you heading for zee hills, then you are most likely going to enjoy the ride. Make sure the bike shop sizes you up and follow up after the first month or so for adjustments.

Happy riding!

A bike with disc brakes and an internal hub sounds like a nice bike, but you don't need all that, especially if your trip to work is only two miles. Like Rocco said, pick something that will work for recreation. While I haven't ridden one, I am a fan of the Torker commputer bikes.

Either Thick or Iron City will probably fit your needs.

Nobody's said it yet, so I will. Stay away from cheap, big-box store bikes. If you only want to spend $100 or so, you'd do much better fixing up an old 10-speed. Spending the equivalent of a tankful of gasoline on lights, brake pads, tires, cables, fenders/mudflaps, etc., esp if you also learn how to do a lot of this work yourself, will be much more likely to *keep* you riding a couple of years into the future.

My first commuter bike was a $200 craigslist purchase. After 3 years I was ready for an upgrade and by then I knew what I wanted to buy. I highly recommend not making a big investment until you've been riding for a few years. Used bikes can be a good deal BUT if they are not in good shape, it can be costly - tune ups, new tires, etc., add up fast. However, for a 2 mile commute, I'd ride just about anything...

I second torker. The torker graduate seems like a solid bike and the price is pretty decent. Thick bikes carries torker. Remember, your commute doesn't have to be only two miles. I take an indirect route to and from work just because I don't want to get off of my bike! good for you for starting to commute. Welcome!

I agree with Pseudocaris about buying in Squirrel Hill.Rental property in that area is high and passed on the consumer when purchasing bikes.I would also stay out of Shady side.I just purchased a bike last year at REI for almost half the price I would of paid for the exact same bike at Pittsburgh Pro Bikes in Squirrel Hill.I would try REI or Thick Bikes.

I would say try other bike shops. $750 to $1000 is too much to spend when you're just testing the waters.

Now, I'm hopeful that once you try it you will be hooked, and will want to ride for fun as well as commute. But don't over-spend to start.

Ask around to family members or friends if they have an unused bike sitting in a garage or shed somewhere that you could borrow to try. Take a bike out on a trail away from traffic and ride a distance equivalent distance (or more!) than your ride to work, to get comfortable.

What area do you live in? People can recommend shops, or you might get super lucky and be near a BikePgher who could help you get rolling.

Go look at Torker bikes down at Thick. The Graduate is my go-to bike I recommend to newish commuter cyclists. Bike Pittsburgh's own Erok reviewed it for us at:

http://urbanvelo.org/torker-graduate-commuter-bike-review/

Since the review not much has changed except for a greatly improved shifter.

Otherwise, $750-$1000 is about where you really hit quality bikes that aren't begging for parts upgrades. Bike's were $100 in the 50s, this is 2011.

My first bike was used, $150 from Craigslist. I got my current one at Biketek in Squirrel Hill a few years ago. I think it was about $450, a premium of maybe $100 over the best price online, but that included them transferring the rack and other accessories from my old bike, and a year of adjustments. So not all Squirrel Hill bike shops are particularly expensive, in my experience.

I agree that starting with a used bike is a good idea, but it's hard to find one that's the right size without help. And for me, buying at a bike store in my Squirrel Hill neighborhood worked great. It's been convenient to have them nearby, too, when things go wrong.

i've also found biketek to be pretty reasonable. and you can get a 15% discount this week with your bike to work day sticker! they had a few bikes, last time i was there, in the $300-400 range that would suit your needs perfectly—low gearing so the hills on your recreational rides don't get too intense, low-end but reliable components that won't cost you too much when you don't know what you want to pay for, and a solid all-round bike for commuting and light recreational use.

and to second what most others have said, get one that feels right for you. if you enjoy riding it, you'll be more likely to keep at it, and add to whatever practical reasons you may have for wanting to bike.

also a +1 for iron city. they're the most convenient shop for me (i work at cmu and often go to oakland for lunch), and they've always treated me right. pretty competitive prices, too, for what i've bought.

+1 for the torker graduate. i already have 7 bikes (currently, who knows how many i have had over the years) and i am still getting one as soon as i get another freelance check in.

the u-district is also a great starter bike from torker

Fit, fenders, lights, gears.

That's the important stuff.

Fenders haven't been talked about much in this thread, but I think everyone would agree you want them.

Gears: If you are beginner and not a huge athlete, the Torker Graduate mentioned would totally suck on anything but the most modest hills. The hills here are immodest.

Unless your commute is, say, from Highland Park to Oakland, you probably want your lowest gear to be significantly less than 1:1 front to back ratio. (AKA 27 gear inches) The Torker's lowest is 45 gear inches (5:3 F:. Some here would disagree with me on that though.

On my 24-speed commuter, 12 speeds are lower than the Torker's lowest. I use them.

If I'm taking a heavy traffic route,I like to have backup lights. Never know when one will go out. Reflectors help, too.

Rainpants are geeky, but wet pants at work are worse.

I'd say that rear reflectors are underrated (in that serious cyclists discount them in favor of anemic blinkies), while front ones are overrated (in that ninjas think those are good enough)

I disagree with Mick about the gearing issues. I've not had a bike with a 1:1 low gear ratio in a really, really long time. While some people think they need ultra low gears to get up hills, many others find that they do not. Writing off bikes for not having a 1:1 ratio is going to have you writing off a lot of bikes.

It's been a long, long time since I've ahd a bike whose lowest gear is 1:1, too.

I gave it away.

This is Pittsburgh.

My lowest is 40/34, and that's too high for several conditions I face, one of which is fatigue. Sure I lugged the three-speed up Federal a few weeks ago, but that's rare. Add a laptop, a book bag, and being up 17 hours to a 10% grade, and like Mick said, if the bike had those gears, I'd use them.

+1 also on rain gear (esp on footwear) and reflectors. One serious blinky for the helmet, another for the bike.

i imagine there is a significant difference between mick's mass and bradq's. i am pretty massive myself, and my lowest gear is 30:28. i almost never use it, but i did an awful lot of squats as a young man. your mileage may vary. literally!

i would say if you are a fairly big person who's never ridden a bike on hills, you're going to want something at or below 1:1. but if you're in pretty good shape, or built like an 8-year-old girl, maybe you don't need to worry so much about it.

when in doubt, try it out. borrow someone's bike and test the gears on a hill. or ask the bike shop if you can test their bike on a hill.

A cyclocross bike may be a good choice. The bigger semi-knobby tires will let you ride gravel rail-trails and some mountain bike trails, while a change to road tires gives a lot of the efficiency of a full-on road racing bike. As a beginner, the slower handling that comes with bigger semi-knobby tires may (or may not) be helpful on the street. The bigger tires also make riding in light snow safer than on road tires. The downside is that most new ones are over $800 and used ones are few and far between.

I imagine Mick's low gear ratio would be in the tail of the distribution for this board, or Pittsburgh in general. I moved from a huge gear range on a heavier mountain bike to a road double, and I haven't missed the granny gear at all. There are plenty of people who ride around single speeds/fixies that are geared a heck of a lot higher than my lowest gear.

@ hidden variable i would say if you are a fairly big person who's never ridden a bike on hills, you're going to want something at or below 1:1. but if you're in pretty good shape, or built like an 8-year-old girl, maybe you don't need to worry so much about it.

There is considerable truth here.

Also consider your need to feel "badass".

I cringe at those "rules" that say if you ride in bad weather you are badass. I commute all winter and I don't like to think of myself in terms like "badass" at all.

I got my first bike from Freeride for... god I don't remember but I think it was $40, plus some shifters. I put a rack and fenders on it, tied on a milk crate and went to town. Rode that until it had more missing gear teeth than present gear teeth on every gear. By then I'd proven that I both COULD and WOULD bike all the places I go, so I shelled out for a shiny new bike, specialized sirrus elite, for somewhere around $700 from Dirty Harry's. I hope to ride that thing to pieces and never buy another, I love it and think it was worth every single penny (though of course I would have loved to find the same thing for less, who dislikes saving money?).

Don't worry about gearing at first, especially if it's flat - just get something with gears (you can swap them out later if you find you want to, I did mine and it's changed my life but it didn't slow me down in the beginning). Actually, even that's inaccurate, there are a lot of people on this board who ride fixed gear bikes all over the place. So yeah, gears help but they're not the only option. (no gears is much cheaper).

Don't worry too much about special clothing or accessories either. Chances are, if you're rain adverse you've got something in your closet that will do. Fenders will go a really long way towards making life easier. Do worry about lights, but duct taping a flashlight to your helmet will do until you figure out what you want or get to a shop and buy something les DIY if you like.

I haven't seen much worth buying that had gears in a LBS for less than $450, not including fenders and a rack ($20 and $40 respectively). Craigslist is cheaper, if people from here aren't already PMing you with suggestions off craigslist, you can always post things you're thinking about and you'll find people willing to help you decide.

The most important thing, though, is to simple throw a leg over a bicycle and ride it. Everything else is just details.

The OP is new to biking and explicitly said "nothing intense". Obviously the right answer depends on his or her fitness level, age, weight, etc., but "don't worry about low gears" is just plain bad advice - especially when you throw in the usual bit of arrogance about it.

good thing no one said that!

Having met both Brad and Mick, I would not be surprised if Brad's power/mass ratio were twice Mick's. Or mine, for that matter.

I've been on plenty of group rides where I ride on past people pushing their bikes up the hill. I have to assume that is not because I'm older than them, fatter than them, or less in shape than them but instead has something to do with the gearing of my bike. Similarly, I can make it up steeper hills on my mountain bike than I can on my road bike, and I'm guessing it's not the fact that it's heavier and has low pressure knobby tires as much as the lower gearing. But maybe I'm crazy.

I found getting a chainguard was a big win. Getting bike grease out of clothes is hard, and for me, securing or folding up a pants leg wasn't enough to keep grease from getting on stuff. The chainguard eliminated that problem.

For lights, the tricky part seems to be getting them securely attached. They seem to most commonly fail by coming off and hitting the pavement. With Pittsburgh's road conditions, "detaches in seconds" isn't necessarily a feature unless the design's smart.

Questions of sanity aside, salty, perhaps you are ascribing short shrift to "bike legs"? It's not been so long since I resumed biking that I've forgotten not having "bike legs." Long ago, though not so long, I was on the rooftop of a building talking to a hardcore biking dude here in outcastville, the northside. I'd been struggling up Liberty for weeks on a mtb, sometimes being passed by joggers and even simple pedestrians, and always being blown off the road by slight young things mashing their swift way uphill. I asked this young buff biker dude how long it took him to get bike legs after his break, and he said six months. I figured it would take me a year. Took about eight months. Now my legs "just go" like autonomic engines of love, pumping away all on their own like bunnies. Woo. There is still the initial thigh burn, but that stops soon enough to disregard it entirely. I counsel folk of this pattern, and it seems to help them to know it.

Gentle gearing helps a "newbie" ease into "bike leg" development, and prevents mashing injuries such as blowing your knees out.

More then anywhere I've lived, one needs "bike legs" to pedalcycle safely and successfully in Pgh on a regular basis; more so then the machine, it's the singular significant barrier to entry into the "badass" circle of Pgh cycling.

Don't you think?

(OT: Why do bunnies insist on racing me and dashing across my path at night? I think I need a rabbit catcher up front, or a grill to embed their little grinning heads. (All apologies and shame to Cormac McCarthy for use of that image. I like bunnies and haven't hit one yet. Deer do the same thing too. Bumped one, but no harm no foul. Bears just look at me. I fear they want to steal my bike. They have that Russian Circus look about them. I calmly tell them to get a job and that sets them to pondering while I spin away.)

No need to worry about the Russian circus bears. They rarely covet full size bikes.

fungi - yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.

Also, I like to think of it as the difference between walking up a hill vs running, which is more or less what it boils down to. The lowest gear implies a minimum riding speed because at some point you just can't pedal any slower. On a bike with a 20" gear you can certainly ride at 3-4mph. With a 45" gear, you're over double that. Definitely you can develop the level of fitness required to do the latter, but its a smaller set of people than can handle the former, since it's basically walking speed.

I really hate reflectors on bikes. They're so ugly, but unfortunately they do serve a purpose If one of your lights dies. i have lights in my spokes, which I recommend so that you are more visible from the side also. They really aren't that expensive and they look cool.

@stefb Lights in your spokes, how does that work. Sounds like something I would like to try

@stefb: I don't want anyone to be denied Justice should they be involved in an accident. That purpose for this post stated, the "fine" for non-compliance is $10 max, and I have no freaking idea what "...an amber reflector on each side" means. Should the reflector face the sides? What about the little ones on some pedals (though they face the front or rear they are on the "sides" of the pedalcycle)? Does it mean "spoke reflectors" which are normally white? Stupid laws sans stupid case law. Grrrr.

Here's the rule as written:

"§ 3507. Lamps and other equipment on pedalcycles.

(a) Lamps and reflectors.--Every pedalcycle when in use between sunset and sunrise shall be equipped on the front with a lamp which emits a beam of white light intended to illuminate the pedalcycle operator's path and visible from a distance of at least 500 feet to the front, a red reflector facing to the rear which shall be visible at least 500 feet to the rear and an amber reflector on each side. Operators of pedalcycles may supplement the required front lamp with a white flashing lamp, light-emitting diode or similar device to enhance their visibility to other traffic and with a lamp emitting a red flashing lamp, light-emitting diode or similar device visible from a distance of 500 feet to the rear. A lamp or lamps worn by the operator of a pedalcycle shall comply with the requirements of this subsection if the lamp or lamps can be seen at the distances specified."

I'm thinking a group buy of reflective amber stickers that read "WTF" is in order...

Pedal reflectors satisfy the law. Spoke reflectors do not. As you point out, the requirements for the amber reflectors are practically meaningless. I agree that it makes (stupid) sense to have amber reflectors lest some cop or lawyer try to make something out of the lack. I disagree with stef that side visibility is particularly important -- conflicts of that sort are almost nonexistent. And I don't care that the other reflectors are ugly; most of my friends are nothing special. But they work, just like fenders.