Not a Bicyclist's Guide to Bicycles

November 14, 2024

All bicyclists ride bikes. But not all bike riders are bicyclists. I'm a bicycle enthusiast: someone who spends enough time riding and repairing bikes to know a thing or two about them. But I'm not a bicyclist, because I don't race my bike, or care about power meters or pacing or compete in events.

I wrote this article to help non-bicyclists better understand bikes: which to buy, what features truly matter to the average rider, and what features only exist for the benefit of Olympians.

If you race bikes, you can safely ignore all of this advice. I'm speaking to people who just want to get around on their bikes, not people who want to min/max stats. Think of what I'm describing as the "Honda Civic of bikes". If you know what drafting is and you want to do it, ignore me.

What is Racing? What is Not Racing?

TL;DR: Most big bike manufacturers, including Trek, Specialized, Giant, and a few others, are 90% racing nonsense. In the last 20 years, only a couple of features have changed in a meaningful way for your average rider.

For Big Bike, racing is where 90% of the money is. Your average racer spends 10x what the average commuter spends on their bike alone. And then they buy kit to pair with the bike:

• special pedals
• special shirts
• special pants
• special underwear
• special butter to make their butts hurt less
• special shoes
• a nicer saddle
• aerodynamic water bottles
• nicer wheels
• tubeless goo every 6 months
• nicer tires for each type of weather, for each category of event
• electrolyte and sugar-filled gels that definitely aren't candy
• electrolyte-filled sports drink mixes

The list goes on; racers spend a lot of money. So these companies barely even try to appeal to anyone but racers, because racers are where the money is. Today, racing includes quite a few (completely separate) categories:

• road
• gravel
• cyclocross
• track
• triathlon
• bikepacking
• mountain (enduro, trail, and downhill)

Each category is individually optimized to death to drop every possible gram of weight and cut every possible square centimeter of surface to drop wind resistance to the minimum. That's great if you're an Olympian, or someone who gets paid $100,000+ per year to ride bikes. For the rest of us? It really doesn't matter, unless you're in the 1% of non-Olympians who occasionally win racing events. But that's a massive minority of people. Compared to all people who bike, the people for whom these optimizations matter number something on the order of "proportion of billionaires to the rest of the human race" or "proportion of people who get eaten by sharks or struck by lighting".

So I'm going to make my first strong recommendation: don't buy a bike that fits into any of the racing categories I listed above. At least, not unless you want to waste money on optimisations you don't need. The only racing category that seems to have any overlap with practical bike needs is gravel, because it's the youngest category, with the least racing infrastructure build around it for components and events. But the industry is catching on.

The astute reader may have noticed that I omitted one popular bike genre from the above list: hybrid bikes. I'm going to make my second strong recommendation for hybrid bikes: do not buy a hybrid bike. Hybrid bikes aren't designed to be good at anything. In fact, they're designed explicitly to be bad at racing! The big bike makers only make them to lower the price of the cheapest bike in their inventories to lure people in the bike shop door. To hit that price point, bike makers take a racing bike, then swap out expensive components for the cheapest equivalents. They are not good, because that is not how you build a nice bike.

Imagine if we built normal cars by starting with a $200k sports car, then swapping out components for the cheapest thing to bring the cost down. Replace those wheels with the cheapest alternative that only lasts 10k miles and provides no grip when it rains. Replace the 8-cylinder engine with a 2-cylinder. Swap out those fancy LED headlights for the cheapest halogens! No more leather seats. Ditch the heated seats and heated steering wheel and the fancy leather trim on the interior. And you're still stuck with a low-riding car with little trunk space, no rear seats, expensive bespoke parts, and an awful crash rating. Because a $200k sports car bakes in all kinds of design assumptions that you wouldn't make in a normal car!

Bikes are no different. To build a good commuter bike (or a good normal car), start with a completely different mentality: make it bulletproof, comfortable, and easy to repair. Racing bikes (and sports cars) start with a completely different set of assumptions, so the Big Bike approach to hybrids is inherently flawed.

If you're unfortunate enough to buy a hybrid bike or what Big Bikes calls a 'commuter', you get trash components. Basically, the stuff they sell to make their racing bikes look lightweight and sleek. You know how computer companies keep their RAM and storage sizes incredible low at the low end, or how car manufactures make that one model without cruise control so you have to upgrade for a few thousand dollars? Same thing here.

What to Look For

When it comes to bikes, particularly commuters or recreational bikes, simpler is better. What do I mean by that?

• Buy a bike made of metal, preferably steel or aluminum.
  • Carbon fiber is slightly lighter than metal, and stronger along one axis. But carbon is much more brittle under stress from every other angle. When someone squishes your bike at a bike rack, or you over-tighten a screw attaching a water bottle cage, or you crash into something, or someone leans against your bike at the wrong angle, you don't want your bike to critically fail in a completely unrepairable way.
  • Metal is cheap.
  • Metal can be re-used (the Allies built tanks from bikes all across Western Europe); carbon fiber inevitably ends up in a landfill and won't break down for thousands of years.
  • Steel rusts. If your municipality salts in the winter, or you live near the ocean, consider aluminum.
• Don't buy suspension.
  • Suspension requires constant maintenance.
  • Suspension is heavy.
  • Suspension is failure prone.
  • Front and rear shocks are not necessary for 99% of use cases. Even my mountain bike doesn't have suspension. And I live in the mountains and spend a couple of hours a day on trails! Only buy a bike with suspension if you plan on using it in the woods at least 90% of the time.
• Bigger tires are better. 1.5"-2.5" is ideal.
  • Chonky tires soak up vibrations from obstacles like potholes and cracks in the road.
  • Chonky tires provide more surface area for better grip when it rains and on gravelly surfaces.
  • In a rare case of racer-shit-being-good-for-normal-people, gravel racing tires are actually good. Vittoria mezcals are my personal favourite, but you can buy almost any gravel tire with decent reviews.
• Simpler brakes are better.
  • Rim brakes stop your bike by rubbing a rubber pad along the outer rim of your wheel. They are cheap, easy to repair, easy to understand, and work great for most use cases. Most people should use rim brakes.
  • Disc brakes stop your bike by squeezing a metal disc attached to the center of your wheel. They are more expensive, harder to repair, harder to understand, more fragile, and work even better than rim brakes for most use cases.
    • Most disc brakes are hydraulic: they use oil-filled tubes to squeeze the brake disc. Oil is silly, and really annoying to work with. Don't get these unless you race.
    • The best disc brakes are mechanical: much like rim brakes, you activate them by pulling a wire, which activates a mechanism that squeezes the disc. These are almost as easy to work on as rim brakes, but a bit more expensive.
• Don't buy a bike that requires batteries or electronics.
  • Electronic shifting or braking? No. You know how your phone, your headphones, your watch, your lawnmower, your car, and everything else constantly needs charging? You know how frustrating it is when that stuff lets you down? Mechanical parts work great. Electronic 'improvements' are just planned obsolescence unless you're the 1% pro racer who might win an extra $100k if you get that 2% efficiency improvement. Just don't!
  • E-bikes are just one half a word away from e-waste. If you buy a nice one from a nice manufacturer, and you know what you're doing, you might get something that helps you move around your city faster and with less sweat than an acoustic bike. But most e-bikes use integrated batteries and shitty parts, and cost way more than an acoustic bike, even after government subsidies. If you're reasonably fit and know nothing about bikes, you're better off with an acoustic bike. After a few months of riding, reconsider the e-bike. Trust me: the price of your acoustic bike is going to be such a small fraction of the cost of a non-awful e-bike, it's worth taking the time and investing the energy to see if you even like biking first!
• Fewer gears is better.
  • Fewer gears mean more reliability in shifting, both in acute failure cases (you hit it with a rock) and broader fail cases (you cover your drivetrain in mud).
  • Fewer gears mean a thicker chain, means less chance of failure when you rust 50% of the way through it.
  • 7 speeds are enough for most commuter needs. 8 or 9 or 10 speeds are more common today. A "1x" chainring with no front derailleur makes maintenance simpler, and is probably the right choice unless you live somewhere incredibly hilly.

After Buying

Now you know what to look for in a bike. But what should you worry about after buying?

• Find a seat that works well for you, if the stock seat isn't comfortable.
  • Find a friendly bike shop that will let you try a few basic saddles out. Take a couple for a spin on the bike. Get the one you like the most.
  • Brooks' saddles are lovely, but expensive. If you can't find a comfy saddle, they're worth a shot.
• When your seat is in the right position, your leg should be just about straight at the bottom of a pedal stroke.
  • Adjust the seat height to do this. You might have to get used to 'tilting' the bike to either side to mount. But your knees will thank you.
• You don't need special shoes.
  • Use your bicycle to go to normal places and do normal things. In normal shoes.
  • When riding around town, it's nice to be able to put a foot down easily at any time, like when a car cuts you off or you hit ice.
• Handlebars are the most important part of bike fit.
  • Get some cozy ergonomic grips, if your grips bother you at all.
  • In general, the higher your handlebars, the more comfortable you'll be.
    • The closer you get to "Dutch grandma", the cozier.
    • The closer you get to Lance Armstrong, the more uncomfortable you'll be (for the sake of aerodynamics).
  • Put your hands out in front of you, like you're a zombie hungry for brains. Take a look at your hands. Imagine how handlebars would fit into them. Most likely, some Dutch-style 'swept-back' handlebars would fit best. Consider acquiring some. A new set of handlebars should be $50 or less, and most likely won't require you to replace anything else. Just make sure you get a handlebar with the same width as your old set, so you can keep using the same stem.
• Fenders are great on a commuter to help with splashing water or mud.
• Lights are a necessity during the dark half of the year.
  • Rechargeable lights are good and cheap online.
  • If you never want to worry about a battery, dynamos are amazing these days. But expensive. Best used for touring bikes, or the truly battery-intolerant daily commuter.
• Kickstands rule, if you ever like to stop away from a bike rack. Do you go to the park? Get a kickstand.

Bike Recommendations

So, after all of this advice, what bike should you buy?

Like cars, you should seriously consider buying used. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace have the best deals. Look for bikes with way too many pictures and way too long a description, because it means that the bike was owned or refurbished by a bike nerd. Avoid bikes with only a single picture, or with non-nerdy descriptions, because there's a decent chance they're stolen or sold by someone who hasn't maintained them well. Leave the 'hidden gem' bikes to the bike nerds -- you don't want to take that chance with your daily driver.

If you can't find a decent used bike, check out your local bike shop. If they stock any bikes from Surly or All-City, they can be trusted. If they only sell Big Bike brands, avoid them and order online.

There are a lot of bike brands out there. Some are Big Bike brands that you should avoid for the reasons I stated above. Most are truly shit brands who cobble together awful plastic components onto cool-looking, but poorly built frames. I strongly advise that you stick to the brands and models I recommend below, no matter how cool or well-specced a bike seems:

• The cheap option ($300 or less): 80s and 90s steel "mountain bikes" without suspension will last literally forever as long as you store them inside and don't ride them right after a fresh salting on a winter road. Trek's 830/850/870/930/950/970 models, the Specialized Stumpjumper/Rockhopper, and quite a few similar bikes from the same era are absolute tanks. And the best part is, the parts are all super cheap these days, so maintenance is as cheap as possible! I use a 1995 Trek 930 as my daily driver and touring bike. Those 7 speeds have taken me all over the USA and UK on trips. Thousands of miles, and I bought this thing for $200 during peak covid bike price scalping.
• The medium option ($1000 or less): Surly makes great, cheap (for their utility value) bikes, mostly steel, that last a looooooooong time. Unfortunately they're moving to hydraulic brakes with some models, and the prices have increased in the last 3-5 years a decent amount, but the Disc Trucker, the Midnight Special, and the Preamble are all fantastic value.
• Another medium option ($1000 or less): All-City Cycles makes great bikes as well, basically the same thing as Surly.
• Another medium option ($1500 or less): Trek 520 is Trek's best bike. It's called a 'touring bike' because you can ride it for thousands of miles without anything breaking. They call it that because they don't want everyone realising it's a million times better value than their awful 'hybrid' commuter bikes.
• Another medium option ($1500 or less): The Salsa Fargo hits similar notes as the Trek 520, though with a slightly more modern design.
• Another medium option ($1300 or less, but customisable to very fancy level): Tumbleweed cycles.
• Getting fancier: Stooge Cycles.
• The fancy option ($2000+): Rivendell is about as good as it gets for commuters. You likely won't get all of Grant's design decisions now -- threaded headets, older bottom bracket standards, antique wheel spacing, rim brakes, etc. all seem like retrogrouch nonsense until you've fixed and broken fancy new components a million times. Buy one of these and you can ride it every day until you die (old and healthy and with full pockets due to your reduced maintenance costs).
• The folding fancy option ($1500+): Brompton makes battle-tested, proven reliable folding bikes for folks who want to take a bike on public transit, into the office, and even into the pub without much faff. And, of course, they last freakin' forever. 20-30 year old bromptons go for prices similar to the modern equivalents because they basically never die.

There are other good brands out there. But most brands sell cheap plastic garbage that will break and wind up in a landfill in 5-10 years. All of the options above should last you a lifetime.

Conclusion

The bike industry has an insane amount of bullshit floating around. So many people will tell you that you need the latest tech from some special brand, or that you can't use something old because it's 'outdated', or that the lack of some critical feature ruins a bike. That is not true. Bikes are fun. They are inherently simple. They are inherently easy (once you learn a few tricks -- see Sheldon Brown and Park Tool's repair videos and manuals) to maintain yourself, and cheap to pay someone else to maintain if you buy the right things.

I see so many people get swept up in the deluge of feature churn I refer to as the sauce. If you want to race, I understand. Some people like that. I don't, but I don't judge you for doing it. But please don't push everyone in the racing direction. If you don't want to race, if you just want to get around on a bike instead of driving or walking everywhere, if you think a bike could be fun and relaxing, there is a better way.