A bicycle or a lawn tractor?

[Jim Shooz]

Some years ago I decided to get back into cycling having not done any since the middle of last century. I searched our local version of ebay and found a cheap bike. Rode that for months and found out the features I liked about cycling and what I did not. Searched the local bike shops and bought a full suspension mountain bike. Used that for a couple of years and found that as leader of the group I was the one who had to be helped up the hills. (even though this bike had 33 gears). Decided that electric was the way to go and spent 8k on a German mountain bike.
This bike has semi-aggressive tyres and I ride on sealed roads, gravel roads, bike trails and mountain bike tracks. At the moment I am riding Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and have put on over six-n-a-half thousand ks on this bike.
I look after the Wednesday group with over 200 members on the mailing list and 60 to 80 turning up to ride each week.
Oh it's the middle of winter here now and I'm 84.

 

[Ford850]

Bikes have been, and continue to be, in short supply like may things these days. I've been looking at some of the Trek mountain bikes, which mostly range from $500 - $3000, with some extremes way above that. $900 - $1100 gets you a nice entry level MTB that will last and is serviceable. For mild trails you can stay below that. If you find one in a store, you'd better buy it. I found a couple (for me and my son) that were on order from my Local Bike Shop. They are expected within the next few months. I checked on some others before putting deposits on those, and was shocked at the ETAs for delivery. Most of the bikes that this shop had on order have delivery dates of 2022 and 2023! If I ordered what I wanted, the ETA was late 2023, and the shop owner said even that ETA won't hold true as the dates are being pushed every month. I had my doubts at first about these insane dates but verified online that this is true, and some ETAs are out as far as 2024.
I would also check your LBS for used bikes. Some of them take in trades and clean them up for resale.

 

[coaster]

Some years ago I decided to get back into cycling having not done any since the middle of last century. I searched our local version of ebay and found a cheap bike. Rode that for months and found out the features I liked about cycling and what I did not. Searched the local bike shops and bought a full suspension mountain bike. Used that for a couple of years and found that as leader of the group I was the one who had to be helped up the hills. (even though this bike had 33 gears). Decided that electric was the way to go and spent 8k on a German mountain bike.
This bike has semi-aggressive tyres and I ride on sealed roads, gravel roads, bike trails and mountain bike tracks. At the moment I am riding Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and have put on over six-n-a-half thousand ks on this bike.
I look after the Wednesday group with over 200 members on the mailing list and 60 to 80 turning up to ride each week.
Oh it's the middle of winter here now and I'm 84.

Wow! 84 and putting that many miles on a bike. That's awesome! Good on you - keep it up. And another "wow" on how much you spent on one bike. There's a lot I DON'T know about what our biking experience will be, but I do know that we won't be spending $8K on a bike - LOL! But thanks for the info and that really is so cool that you're keeping active as you are. My wife and I are both 56, but empty-nesters so now is really a good time for us to get back into activities like biking.

 

[coaster]

My wife and I have Trek bikes. They are fantastic. They cost something like $700 each. That included getting kick stands, water bottle holders, a mirror upgraded seats and a mileage counter.

We only ride paved or chat trails and paths. But - as I said - they are fantastic. We probably ride 1000 miles per year. She rides more than me.

Bikes are great exercise and easy on the joints. I hurt my knee playing tennis and had a time where I couldn’t walk easily. But, I could ride a bike easy. Helped build my knees back to good.

Good luck.

MoKelly

Yes, so the low-impact aspect is why I thought of biking. I think I'm gonna visit the local Trek shop. Thanks for the input.

 

[coaster]

All, thanks for all the great input. I'm gonna keep all of this info in mind; especially the suggestion to hook my wife up to a string or reel mowers pulled by a bike to get the best of both worlds . I think I'll go ahead and visit a local bike shop (I don't think I've earned the right to use LBS yet ), and see what they have to offer and what I can learn.

 

[dodge man]

Me and the wife both have Treks. When I think what I paid for it used, it seems like a steal when I look at today’s prices, I think it was less than $400. That was also going on 20 years ago. I think the wife’s was around $500 10 years ago.

If you are not going to be a real serious rider I’d look at Hybrid bikes. Not a road bike, not a mountain bike. They work well on the roads around here which are oil and chip and have loose gravel in places. They also work on what I call groomed trails, that have nice fine gravel.

I‘ve posted this before but I often look at a purchase of cost per use. Say I spent $400 on my bike. I ride it 4 times and then it sits for years. That’s $100 per use, not a great purchase. With my bike I don’t know how many times I’ve ridden it but well over 400 times so it’s well under a $1 per use.

I wouldn’t spend big money on a bike until you know how serious you will be. It’s also one of those things I want to touch and ride a few hundred feet to see how it fits.

 

[fruitcakesa]

I have been riding since I got my first balloon tired bike at age 5.
I have been through a few more bikes in the last 65 years and about 5 years back my wife paid for me to have a "bike fitting".
Basically, you sit on a computer connected "bicycle" and a tech manipulates it through the computer until all the relevant components fit your body.
You then have the option to either have a custom bike built $$$$ or find one that can be configured to your spec.
I did the latter and the comfort of such a set up is unmatched by an off the rack model.
I was able to have the top tube lengthened to complete the fit. Still not cheap but I will ride this for the rest of my life or as long as I am able.

 

[ArlyA]

I problem with going cheap and without proper fitting as a test, is you'll mostly like fail at having any fun. It's like you'd like to try owning and driving a car, so you go with a dated Yugo. Drving would be no fun.

 

[ericm979]

Unless you're really unusually proportioned or very large or small, most people can get a good fit on an off the shelf bike frame. You may need a different stem, seatpost, seat, bars, to get the contact points in the right place for you. Swapping parts to get the right fit is part of the fitting process a good LBS does. Once you have a fit that works, you can take those measurements and use them to fit the next bike. I've been using the same road fit with minor tweaks since the '80s. I went through a phase of experimenting with seat height for a while and came back to what I'd been using.

Besides the weight issue, another advantage of higher end bikes is the controls work better which makes the bike feel nicer to ride. But beyond around $2.5-3k for road bikes, the quality improvement per unit price increase goes down quite a bit. I think that figure is higher for full suspension MTBs as the suspension parts cost a lot to make.

Many of the people I used to race and train with had nice bikes and cheap cars. I did for a while. If you spend a lot more time in the saddle than in the car, that makes sense.

 

[fruitcakesa]

Unless you're really unusually proportioned or very large or small, most people can get a good fit on an off the shelf bike frame. You may need a different stem, seatpost, seat, bars, to get the contact points in the right place for you. Swapping parts to get the right fit is part of the fitting process a good LBS does. Once you have a fit that works, you can take those measurements and use them to fit the next bike. I've been using the same road fit with minor tweaks since the '80s. I went through a phase of experimenting with seat height for a while and came back to what I'd been using.

Besides the weight issue, another advantage of higher end bikes is the controls work better which makes the bike feel nicer to ride. But beyond around $2.5-3k for road bikes, the quality improvement per unit price increase goes down quite a bit. I think that figure is higher for full suspension MTBs as the suspension parts cost a lot to make.

Many of the people I used to race and train with had nice bikes and cheap cars. I did for a while. If you spend a lot more time in the saddle than in the car, that makes sense.

This is true, a friend once estimated that to lose a pound of weight on high end bikes expect to pay $1k per pound