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February 25th, 2006

Buying a bicycle

Several of the clergy bloggers I linked to yesterday have been talking about cycling recently. Maggi has been learning to ride a bike, whilst Paul has written this rather good piece ‘Bicycles – surely a sign of the kingdom‘.

And there’s something truly wonderful about a machine which can propel a human being at speeds exceeding our running speed, without contributing a single ounce to global pollution. The bicycle is a parable of faith: needing the rider to work with the machine, enjoying its benefits but also taking responsibility for their own contribution to maintaining its forward momentum (and if you give up peddling long enough, you will stop and fall off!)

I’m hoping to buy a new bike shortly. I do already have a mountain bike but it is a little bit of a relic from my racing days in the early 90s. I have a birthday coming up too which is a good excuse. I am quite inspired by the latest generation of ‘hybrid’ bikes – part mountain bike, part road bike. You can get quite a reasonable amount for your money too. I have seen the Raleigh Pioneer Metro GLX for around £250 and the Claud Butler Classic for as little as £177.99. This might seem like a lot but it really isn’t compared with the cost of owning a vehicle or repeated public transport trips. You can get less expensive bikes but with heavier steel frames and cheap components such as the brakes etc which seem to me like a bit of a false economy.

Has anyone reading bought one of these ‘hybrid’ bikes? Am I thinking along the right lines?

8 Comments »



This is a single Cartoon Blog entry, posted by Dave on Saturday, February 25th, 2006 at 8:00 am.

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8 Responses to “Buying a bicycle”


  1. Dave Warnock says:

    We bought my wife a Ridgeback Storm a couple of years ago. It has been excellent requing very little work. It rides very nicely.

    See http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=60386

    it is the next price bracket up at approx £450 although they do some that are cheaper.

    My £400 Ridgeback MTB is now over 12 years old and apart from normal replacements of chain and cassette is still going well. It is now on it’s 4th user (me, then Jane, then oldest son, now next son) and has done a lot of miles.

    Good bikes last longer and are better to ride for the whole of their life than cheaper ones.

    Go up as far as you can, youn won’t regret it.

    February 25th, 2006 at 10:37 am
  2. Jack the Lass says:

    Dave I’d love to help and offer advice, but as I haven’t ridden a bike since I outgrew my bike with stabilisers some time in the late 70s, I probably wouldn’t have the type of up-to-date advice you’re looking for.

    February 25th, 2006 at 11:37 am
  3. Richard Hall says:

    Dave’s advice bike-wise will be much more useful than mine, but fwiw I’ve been riding a Claud Butler Odyssey for the last 5 years or so and been very happy with it.

    February 25th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
  4. Alex Wegman says:

    As a bit of a [road] bike nut (who smugly doesn’t have a car), I’d say the hybrid bikes are worth considering for general commuting. However, a good mountain bike with a nice shock-absorbing fork and smaller wheels (than a hybrid) is probably best for nippy manoevring through traffic.
    Some high-end bike brands make slightly more affordable models with great frames but cheaper components. This is ok as you can always upgrade the components later (whereas it’s probably not worth it on a cheap framed bike).
    One more thing…if you plan to ride longer distances than just down to the shop and back, ignore the mythical horror stories and invest in some SPD style clipless pedals and shoes. There is an initial learning curve, but it’s not hard, and pedalling is more comfortable and efficient with your feet securely held to the pedals. Modern bike shoes (not the racing type) are comfortable to walk in as the cleat is recessed.
    All the best!

    February 26th, 2006 at 9:36 am
  5. Dave says:

    Thanks for these comments. Hope to reply to some of the bicycle-related thoughts during the week.

    February 26th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
  6. Rob says:

    I recently bought a Brompton folding bike.

    I have a 15 minute cycle ride after my 20 minute train journey every morning so a bike that folds into a compact self-locked unit weighing only 11kg is very handy.
    You can get tungsten forks and other bits to lighten it even further, but then the price starts to skyrocket!

    February 27th, 2006 at 11:50 am
  7. Paul Roberts says:

    I’d be inclined to up your budget a bit Dave, say by £100. What you intend to use the bike for is critical. The frame is the most important part of any bike, followed by the forks and the wheels, so it’s these that you’ll be paying for, and once you’ve bought, you live with them. So buy the best you can afford. Mountain bikes are designed for minimum weight, robustness, ease of cleaning/servicing – ie. to be best off-road. But if you’re using the bike for commuting, then mudguards are essential (but they’re a pain for mountain-biking!) Hence, hybrids are compromise machines for a particular context. If you want your machine for longer distances, then you need to be thinking more along the lines of touring models. If you want it for mountain biking, then you should steer the features in that direction. The key thing is: know what you’re mainly going to be using this bike for, then buy accordingly.

    Most serious cyclists have more than one bike, each tuned to different contexts. For example, I have my hybrid which I use for the nasty business of getting around Bristol in all weathers, but I have a much-loved touring bike, much more light-weight, with an old-fashioned Reynolds 531 frame for the open road. I don’t possess an all-terrain model since I don’t go off-road much. When I do, I take my hybrid, never my tourer, and then only for moderate terrain in good weather. If I wanted to do lots of off-road stuff, I’d have to buy a third bike eventually, or exchange it for the hybrid. So you live within the boundaries of compromise either side of your main activity of choice. That said, for many people, a mid-range mountain bike or a hybrid can be pressed into service across a wide range of types of activity, as long as you realise you’re compromising a bit at each point.

    February 28th, 2006 at 7:31 am
  8. Simo says:

    I have had my Claud Butler for around 15 years now (although I don’t use it anywhere near as much as I did a few years ago), even with several thousand miles on the clock it is still running great with just a few changes of worn parts. My dad brought a hybrid a couple of years ago which is great for general commuting but if you want to day anything any tougher than that I think you need to think about something more specifically designed for the purpose. Lastly personally wouldn’t touch Raleigh with a barge pole if could possibly help it!

    February 28th, 2006 at 10:40 am