Bike for a newbie

[serbring]

Hi all,

I'm searching a bike for my gf. She is new in biking and so she is not trained. We are searching a bike that allows her to cycle fast on road while touring. The budget is limited so we are searching for a second hand bike. I'm thinkng to a racing bike and hybrid bike. I'm afraind the gearing of a racing bike is too high for a newbie and hybrid bikes are not much better of a mtb that is the bike she actually has. Which bike would you suggest to a newbie?

[maxcherry]

Adventure bikes.

Gearings not that high or low, can load up gear (most have mounts for bags or rack). Mainly comes down to what she feels comfy and confident with. Some folks like hybrids and some don't. Go on a tour of bike shops, take your time as the sales will get better just before and after christmas

[MikeF]

Whatever bike you choose, the best one will be a bike that fits her best. This might be more important than the type of bike. Unfortunately for shorter people this becomes more difficult with bikes of standard components. Buying second hand means you will need to wait until something suitable becomes available

[serbring]

Thanks for your reply. I agree with both of you, there are many second hand racing and mtb bikes but almost no adventure and hybrid bikes in Italy. There are few CX bikes but they are totally out of the budget.

[greyingbeard]

how about a purpose built touring bike ?
Plenty around new and old at all prices.
a "mixte" perhaps ? these often sell very cheaply

[Brucey]

I agree, one of these;



a claud butler majestique (or the similar 'ladydale' model) will give a wonderfully compliant ride and is in standard trim not heavy, about 27lbs including pedals, mudguards and carrier (which would originally have been steel!). The only snag is that the older models will have 27" wheels, so there is not a wide choice of tyres. But you can get contis and paselas in this size and maybe that is good enough. Later models (with different colour paint jobs) sometimes have 700c wheels but the components fitted are not as lightweight and are not the same quality.

At one point these bikes were fitted with campag hubs, wolber super champion rims, SunTour Cyclone gearset (one of the lightest gearsets ever made). If your GF doesn't enjoy riding one of these bikes then I'd be concerned that she'll never take to cycling!

1982 brochure here;
http://www.nkilgariff.com/CBcats/Cat_82/82CoverR.jpg


cheers

[serbring]

Hi,

bulding a bike it would be great and it is time consuming and probably much more expensive because I'm not able to mount everything on my onw. Anyway I'll take a look in the second hand market if there is something. Thanks

[FarOeuf]

put a new cassette on the existing mountain bike, somewhere between mountain and road gearing. add on some slick tyres, supple sidewalls roll faster. see how she gets on. maybe try different chainrings. easier/cheaper to experiment on the existing mountain bike (in terms of gearing) than buy a complete new bike. when you establish the right sort of gear range then you can think about what sort of 'new' bike that implies.

'adventure' bikes are a bit of nonsense, they are just disguised tourers (people have 'adventured' on touring bikes for decades). CX geometry is also pretty similar to a traditional touring bike. if it's simply gearing that that's the problem, then gearing can be mixed and matched whatever the bike.

[Vorpal]

Can she use her mountain bike? If not, maybe you can get an old steel-framed mountain bike? They tend to make pretty good touring bikes. Mountain bike gearing is often pretty good for touring. My first touring bike had mountain bike gearing, and it worked well for me. I certainly wouldn't making the gearing harder without doing some touring on it first.

If she can't use her mountain bike, you can also try German and Dutch secondhand sites (or ebay.de) for trekking bikes.

[serbring]

Can she use her mountain bike? If not, maybe you can get an old steel-framed mountain bike? They tend to make pretty good touring bikes. Mountain bike gearing is often pretty good for touring. My first touring bike had mountain bike gearing, and it worked well for me. I certainly wouldn't making the gearing harder without doing some touring on it first.

If she can't use her mountain bike, you can also try German and Dutch secondhand sites (or ebay.de) for trekking bikes.

Hi Vorpal,

well, getting an old steel framed mountain bike is a great idea, but then I need a repairman to build and it'd cost me more than a second hand bike. Actually my first conceirn is to understand which bike will let her to cycle fast and comfortably. She cycled my Genesis Croix de Fer and she doesn't like dropped handle bar, so we will probably go for hybrid bike, because it slightly faster than a mtb and I can found many second hand bikes for women.

[Brucey]

well, getting an old steel framed mountain bike is a great idea, but then I need a repairman to build and it'd cost me more than a second hand bike. Actually my first conceirn is to understand which bike will let her to cycle fast and comfortably. She cycled my Genesis Croix de Fer and she doesn't like dropped handle bar, so we will probably go for hybrid bike, because it slightly faster than a mtb and I can found many second hand bikes for women.

finding a hybrid that looks about right will be easiest because there are loads out there. However there is no reason to suppose that any secondhand bike won't need work on it (in fact it is almost guaranteed... why is the bike for sale...?) also a poor hybrid will be worse than a good MTB with slick tyres. Both types seem 'easier' to start with because of the flat bars but are ultimately less comfortable and versatile than alternatives IMHO.

If your GF wants to ride fast and in comfort then I would recommend dropped handlebars, on a bike that fits her. I don't think that it is sensible to reject dropped handlebars on the basis of a single (short?) trial ride on someone else's bike that probably doesn't even fit her remotely well; that'd be like rejecting shoes (all shoes) on the basis of trying someone else's on, or rejecting the idea of ever learning to drive a car after the first lesson because 'it is complicated' or something.

If you look at how touring, audax, and randonneur bikes have been built for about the last half century or more, you will see that they have all been built in a particular way that allows fast riding, all day, in comfort. This means if you want the best out a machine in these respects it should have dropped bars, decent pedals, decent saddle, a resilient frame etc. Expecting to be able to ride similarly fast, in comfort on a hybrid bike is just a nonsense, a red herring if you like; if you look at the way they are usually designed it is as if the people that built them had never seen a proper touring bike, or if they had, they learned absolutely nothing from it. On a hybrid everything that is meant to be light and resilient is instead too often built heavy, stiff, and lumpen; good ones are 'OK' I suppose but too many of them are just dreadful to ride.

There are exceptions of course but most hybrid bikes are really used for nipping down the shops or for an occasional (slow and not very long) weekend ride; this is not an accident. They might be a little bit better than an MTB but if you are buying another bike in anticipation of doing some proper riding, it surely ought to be a lot better, not just a little bit...?

Let me put it this way; if you are riding your Genesis on the hoods, and your GF is riding alongside, on a hybrid with flat bars, between the typically crap tyres, the typical crap weight of the thing and the typically crap aerodynamics, she could be working up to 50% harder at the same speed; is this really what you want? Do you think this is a recipe for happy cycling? Why on earth anyone would buy a hybrid when you can still buy a superb used touring machine (that BTW, if you had built now would cost thousands, not hundreds) is quite beyond me.

[An anecdote; I sold a work colleague a 'lady dalesman' a few years ago; she was absolutely thrilled. She said it was the most wonderful bicycle she had ever ridden, and that it had transformed her cycling for ever. I can believe it too; I happened to see her out on her bike one day (I was in a car at the time and she didn't see me) and she just looked really happy; she was going at a far lick too... I suppose I can take some credit for making sure that the bike was correctly set up, and that it fitted her etc, but really the fundamentals of the bike were there from the start; a modern hybrid would have been a very poor substitute by comparison.]

I cannot overemphasise how important the bike fit is; as others have commented this is almost more important than the type of bike. BTW you can make dropped bars a bit easier for a beginner by fitting crosstop brake levers. Also note that many touring bikes are set up with the shifters on or near the tops; this also makes things a bit easier to start with, whilst still allowing the versatility (and better aerodynamics) of dropped bars.

cheers