Poll of the Day > I have been thinking about getting a bike.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Are the $1000+ ones worth it or should I just grab a $100 one from walmart?
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what are you gonna do?
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If you're not sure if you like riding, get a cheap one and see if it's something you're going to enjoy and stick with. Upgrade later if it suits you.
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To find a trek dealer and ride before you buy, decent entry lvl is around 700, most shops won't even fix a walmart scrapper, and they like to break
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ferko420 posted...

To find a trek dealer and ride before you buy, decent entry lvl is around 700, most shops won't even fix a walmart scrapper, and they like to break

I don't know where you live, but most shops in my area will fix whatever bike you bring them.
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Usually the 50 bux to fix a broke $100 scrapper and a test ride will sell a new one next visit
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What?
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darcandkharg31 posted...

what are you gonna do?

There is a bike trail near my house that goes right past my work. It is under 5 miles away. Only bout 5-10 by car depending on traffic, figure by bike it couldn't be more than 20-25 minutes. Might be nice to save on gas. The biggest problem is I live in wisconsin and summer is half over, winter is a crap shoot on whether it is just cold as balls or if we have 10 feet of snow. Not sure if now is a good time to buy or not.

Then again wisconsin is in the top 10 best biking states and we have trails all over. I'm told if you want to do it you can basically bike anywhere you want in the state, so a longer trip every once in a while would be fun to try. My dad and brother were also thinking about getting into biking and doing an 80 mile ride to green bay.

Far-Queue posted...

If you're not sure if you like riding, get a cheap one and see if it's something you're going to enjoy and stick with. Upgrade later if it suits you.

I've had bikes before, riding is ok, good for getting to a to b, but I have never tried riding just to ride. So that would be new. But I do at least plan on using it for short trips.

ferko420 posted...

To find a trek dealer and ride before you buy, decent entry lvl is around 700, most shops won't even fix a walmart scrapper, and they like to break

My last bike was a walmart bike, it broke a few years ago and they wanted to charge the price of the bike to fix it, but at the same time, I have never ridden a 700 dollar bike so I am not sure if it is worth the price increase.
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From what I've heard the biggest issue with the cheap bikes is that they aren't assembled very well by the employees

I've heard of some folks that buy one of the cheaper bikes and bring it in to a shop to have them tighten everything up and put better tires on the thing
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its like going from a honda to a caddy... as much as i hate to say it, you need a fat tire bike, all the rage right now, but suitable for snow riding
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You don't need $1000 to get a good bike, son! I got my Giant Roam 3 for under $400 due to a sale. Besides the gear chain occasionally coming off, I've had zero issues in almost a year.
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Mead posted...

From what I've heard the biggest issue with the cheap bikes is that they aren't assembled very well by the employees

I've heard of some folks that buy one of the cheaper bikes and bring it in to a shop to have them tighten everything up and put better tires on the thing

by the time I pay for a walmart bike and pay the bike store to give it a once over I may as well just buy one of the bike store's cheaper bikes.

ferko420 posted...

its like going from a honda to a caddy

I've heard the expression before, so I think I know what you are trying to say, but I'm not a car guy. I mostly just like getting from a to b as cheap(including time investment) as possible.

ferko420 posted...

as much as i hate to say it, you need a fat tire bike, all the rage right now, but suitable for snow riding

I've seen those and they look neat, but I have concerns. Are they suitable for other kinds of biking, or are they almost exclusively good low traction areas? Because I have a perfectly good car, I can put my bike away if it is too snowy or icey out. We also have really good snow clearing here so it would only be the day of the snow or possibly day after if it is especially wet and icey that it would be a big problem. Because of this I would rather not get a bike that is optimized for snow when will still be using it on mostly clear roads for 90% of the year if it is worse for those roads.

Blue_Thunder posted...

You don't need $1000 to get a good bike, son! I got my Giant Roam 3 for under $400 due to a sale. Besides the gear chain occasionally coming off, I've had zero issues in almost a year.

I don't know man those $1000 bikes have some pretty spiffy extras. :P
But seriously the $1000 was just a place holder for more pricey bike. I know the bike stores have some cheaper options, but the cheapest ones are still a lot more expensive than what I would find at target, walmart, or even dick's.
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I got my bike from a friend who was about to put it on craig's list. $300 with 3 sets of tires, lights, helmet, and a bunch of other accessories. Only thing I had to do was get a $50 tune up and a more comfortable saddle.

For your first bike, just get a used one and a $50 tune up for it. There are TONS of people who get the $1000 bike, ride it 3 times, then sell it off. Might as well profit from their mistakes.
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Dikitain posted...

I got my bike from a friend who was about to put it on craig's list. $300 with 3 sets of tires, lights, helmet, and a bunch of other accessories. Only thing I had to do was get a $50 tune up and a more comfortable saddle.

For your first bike, just get a used one and a $50 tune up for it. There are TONS of people who get the $1000 bike, ride it 3 times, then sell it off. Might as well profit from their mistakes.

I've looked around on sites like craigslist and while you are probably saving money, I'm not seeing many options that are cheap. The problem comes with if I am paying $300 for a used bike I don't know enough about them to see if they are worth buying or if they are basically trash the guy is trying to scam with. It is not like people over valuing their property online is a rare thing. I would rather either just go cheap and get a walmart bike that at least works or buy new from someone who can educate me while I buy it.

I wouldn't mind checking out some recumbents, but they seem to be pricier.
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For basic commuting sort of use, $400-500 will get you something pretty decent. You don't really want to cheap out and get a Walmart special if you're going to be using it regularly, since you just won't get a very good bike out of that (heavy, uncomfortable, not very durable). At the other end, don't go looking for $1000+ bikes unless you're really serious about doing a lot of biking, since that just won't be necessary. Mine was $1100 CDN (at a point when the exchange rate was much closer to parity than it currently is), and while I love it, I wouldn't say that anyone looking for a bike should get one like it. I just do enough biking (mix of commuting and trail rides) to want something higher-end.

Your best bet would be to go into a bike shop, tell them what you're looking to use it for, give them your budget (and ask if they would recommend increasing your budget given your expected usage), and test ride what they recommend. Hit up a few different shops so you can compare different recommendations and models (different shops will carry different brands), keep track of what you try so you can tell other shops what you've liked already and get similar recommendations, and you'll be able to find something you like. I'd say start with a $500 budget, given what you're describing. Maybe a bit higher, since it sounds like you are looking to ramp up quite a bit, but don't necessarily jump right into the $1000+ stuff until you at least know you like doing it.

I went to 5 places that sell bikes today

2 local bike retailers, a trek bicycle store, which I assume is part of a chain, and dick's sporting goods.

The first local store was friendly and helpful and recommended taking a long test drive past the river, but they didn't provide a lot of information that I did not directly ask for and as a bike newbie, I'm not sure what kind of questions to ask. They recommended a $750 2017 Sirrus sport with a carbon fork and hydraulic discs. It was super light and agile and was definitely different than what I was used to, but it also wasn't an especially comfortable ride.

The second store tried to sell me a Giant TCX for $800, but they wouldn't even let me sit on the thing, let alone ride it. I thought that was very strange. I did not feel very welcome and did not stay long.

The Trek store had 2 different ones depending on what I wanted to spend. An FX 2 mechanical disc starting at 549.99 and an FX 3 hydraulic disc starting at 769.99. With the purchase of all bikes they give an extra 10% on accessories and they are having a large sale on thursday which could bring the cost down even more. The fX 3 I rode there didn't feel quite as light as the first one, but was much more comfortable and handled a bit better. The staff was also very helpful and asked a lot of questions to make sure I had the right information. Sadly the test drive wasn't as nice, just around the oval parking lot a couple of times. But it was still the best experience of the day.

The next stop was actually closed as it turns out the owner recently had a heart attack, but there was a general high end sport store down the street, their bikes started out of my price range and went up from there, so I just looked around at some of their non bike stuff and left. Nice store, nice people, just not what I was looking for.

The last stop was dick's sporting goods. Just to compare the stuff at a box store and see if I wanted to fork out for the higher end stuff. The guy selling bikes knew almost nothing about them and I could tell he was just trying to stretch what he knew to fill the conversation and base his answers off of it, he ended up choosing a $500 hybrid bike,(I forgot the brand name as I didn't write it down, but I think it was either a schwinn or a diamondback) but the bike was probably double the weight of the other bikes I was looking at that day, the handles were hard and uncomfortable compared to the ones I was using this morning, the brakes felt a bit sluggish and quite honestly it was an ugly lime green color.

I stopped one more time at the first shop again, this time the helpful fellow who helped me the irst time was gone and replaced by 2 ruder employees. The first guy got the bike off the wall and adjusted the height of the seat. I was going to give a cheaper one I saw there, but didn't ride a chance to compare to the fx 2 option at trek, but the new employees just pointed the bike off the wall and said I was free to take it down and give it a test ride. No adjustments or even help getting it down. The bike itself wasn't bad, but not as comfortable as the fx and sharper turns were harder to make with it than the other ones.

Sadley all of the ones I was pointed to had a flat handle bar system. I wouldn't have liked trying out the curved handle bars, but they seemed to just be on the more expensive bikes.

Out of the ones I saw today I think I liked the FX3 the best, and the trek store had the best staff by far. So I think I may go back thursday and see what kind of sale they are running. They said they don't have the exact prices yet, but they do know the 2018 models are at least $50 off (they received promotional coupons for the sale) and have 2 years Interest free financing.
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mechanical brakes are alot less hassle than hyrdaulics, and cheaper!!!! i buy aftermarket bb7 mechanical disc brakes for all my bike, cos i can tear em down and fix em
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