"Cycling: here’s how to make buying a new bike an easy ride"

[Jdsk]

"Cycling: here’s how to make buying a new bike an easy ride":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... l-new-used

General advice that might come in useful the next time that someone asks.

Jonathan

[Nearholmer]

Big shout out for the Pinnacle Lithium 3 that I’m forever recommending, I notice!

[cycle tramp]

Oh lordy, no! What an utterly banal article.... go and buy a nice comfy bike from the Netherlands and have done with it

Apologies, because that sounded harsh, but the article should have focused on how sport and fashion has corrupted the idea of what makes a rounded** bike, servicing costs of modern equipment and how a bicycle from the Netherlands (or something like it) can fit into your existing life style and save you money.... (and you can wear a skirt*)....and the fact that straight bars*** aren't all that comfortable

(*not being sexist here, than includes blokes as well)
(** my grandfather rode his raleigh wayfarer for 10 years to and from work, all it ever needed was the occasional new tyre and a set of brake blocks)
(*** not those straight bars, I mean straight handlebars- they still pull your shoulders forward, which isn't a natural position, whereas handlebars with a sweep of 67 or more degrees keep your shoulder blades back just as you were taught during your army/Swiss finishing school/wherever else days)

[Ginge_126]

I think we're quite limited in the UK with the offerings available to us.
I've nearly always bought second hand and have had road bikes, hybrids and now have a tourer and a Swedish Pilen (Arrow) utility bike.
The latter is built like a tank and heavy, although for local trips and rides or around 10ish miles, it rides like a dream.

Both I see as practical transport for varying distances, both leisure, fitness and shopping.

I had an old 1954 Raleigh 'All Steel' Superbe when funds were tight and the kids were small. I found it the most comfortable bike I've ever ridden over short distance. Both this and the Pilen are the epitomy of practicality and function over form for me and so useful as workhorse bikes which could easily outlive me.

Things like mudguards and racks seem to attract derision, owing to fashions and fads. (I do remember stripping the rack and guards off a childhood bike...another Dawes, in an attempt to fit in...daft but it isn't any different now.

[Nearholmer]

Well, if I was a newbie, I’d find it a useful article, and you’ll notice that a lot of what it says is pretty much exactly the same as what is said by the collected wisdom of this forum to newbies who ask for advice here. It’s all grounded in the art of the easily possible for about £500 too, which seems sensible to me.

But, I do get the shoulder thing, especially as a person who struggles to get comfortable on a straight-barred bike. Maybe the way to tackle that while remaining within the art of the easily possible would simply be to warn people against choosing a bike/size that is too long-fronted and low-headed for their comfort and needs, and point out that stems can be changed cheaply and easily, which a lot of people unfamiliar with bikes don’t know. I’d personally be shy of pointing newbies to relative exotica, and would keep it to “high street” brands

[zenitb]

...
(** my grandfather rode his raleigh wayfarer for 10 years to and from work, all it ever needed was the occasional new tyre and a set of brake blocks)
....

I ALSO rode a Raleigh Wayfarer - to school and work between 1971 and 1985 (when it was stolen). Totally agree with your point about mantainabily Cycle Tramp .. this was a superb bike. I hit a pedal and broke the pedal axle (so new pedal), but apart from that, as you say, brake blocks and tyres. Mine had the little cap to fill up the Sturmey hub with oil and a clip you could take off on the front axle to do the same. I have never had a bike that required as little maintenance since. I still have the stamped metal flat multi-tool that fitted all the nuts and bolts on the bike including the BB and axles - not a hex bolt in site. This was literally a bike that could be understood and maintained by a child - the child being me.

[Nearholmer]

I guess that an article about choosing a bike from among those that are easily obtainable at a modest budget is different from an article about the ideal general purpose bike, having no regard to price, or current availability.

I’ve succumbed to temptation and bought yet another flat-barred bike to try, because I think I might have now found “the near-ideal” from among stock items:

- steel frame for durability, tick;

- top-tube not overly long in proportion to overall frame size, tick;

- decent disc brakes, tick;

- screw-in BB bearing, tick;

- ahead stem to make any fiddling about to get exact fit cheap and easy, tick;

- very wide range of gear ratios, tick.

It so happens that it’s the same bike that I have as a drop-bar, and which is extremely comfortable, a Genesis Croix de Fer, so we shall see once I’ve used it for a bit.

Genesis also sell a “town” bike with exactly the same geometry and slightly swept-back bars, their Brixton, which has I think an aluminium frame and steel fork, while Temple and Pashley supply new bikes of very trad shape, although theirs come with rather outdated quill stems and narrow frames, I think.

[Sparky56]

Essentially this article is a rehash of something from Bikeradar, which (to) me is expert at rehashing older articles and writing incomplete reviews….…… such lazy journalism from the Guardian - I would have expected better.

[Sparky56]

I guess that an article about choosing a bike from among those that are easily obtainable at a modest budget is different from an article about the ideal general purpose bike, having no regard to price, or current availability.

I’ve succumbed to temptation and bought yet another flat-barred bike to try, because I think I might have now found “the near-ideal” from among stock items:

- steel frame for durability, tick;

- top-tube not overly long in proportion to overall frame size, tick;

- decent disc brakes, tick;

- screw-in BB bearing, tick;

- ahead stem to make any fiddling about to get exact fit cheap and easy, tick;

- very wide range of gear ratios, tick.

It so happens that it’s the same bike that I have as a drop-bar, and which is extremely comfortable, a Genesis Croix de Fer, so we shall see once I’ve used it for a bit.

Genesis also sell a “town” bike with exactly the same geometry and slightly swept-back bars, their Brixton, which has I think an aluminium frame and steel fork, while Temple and Pashley supply new bikes of very trad shape, although theirs come with rather outdated quill stems and narrow frames, I think.

what bike did you get? & what you using it for? intrigued

[Nearholmer]

It’s a flat-bar Croix de Fer.

For longer and more energetic rides I have a drop-bar Croix de Fer in “gravel” spec, which I get on really well with, but I always have some sort of FB bike on the go too, which I use for shopping, family rides, anything where I don’t want to wear “cycling gear” basically, so usually trips no more than c10 miles each way, and not very energetic.

I’ve had a succession of FB bikes, and since (rather foolishly) giving away the 1991 hybrid that I had, I’ve not found one quite right. I had a Pashley, which was absolutely slug-like, converting leg-effort into something other than forward motion, tried a 29er which I didn’t like (front about as responsive as a tank), but my son loves, and for the past few months the Pinnacle Lithium, which is a great bike for the money, but the Large frame while spot-on at the back, is annoyingly long-fronted.