Oh, I LOVE this question! I get asked this question a lot, so I typed it out so that I can just have it ready whenever people ask it… And the length of my answer below is proportional to how much I love the question!

I get asked bike advice a lot, because I give off that “I know so much about bikes” vibe. I have some general advice, sure, but I think the best advice I can give you is to find a GOOD bike shop that can help you pick the right bike.

By GOOD bike shop, I mean one where they have high-quality bikes, medium-quality bikes, and a staff that understands its customers. They should listen to you before they make a recommendation–the bike should fit your physical size, but also your riding goals, as well as your fitness level. For example, I do not, and probably never will, own a racing bicycle, as fit as I am, it’s just not my kind of ride.

Having the right frame design is crucial, because the angle of your feet, seat, and handlebars will determine how comfortable you are, how efficiently you pedal, and therefore how much you’re going to love riding it.  For the past few years, I’ve always included the advice to spend no less than $300 on a bike, otherwise you’re getting junk, but I think it’s time to revise that figure and suggest people spend no less than $400. To be perfectly honest, the bike I have my eyes on for my next bike is priced higher than $900.

I have a hybrid bike (a Trek 7200 that I got for Christmas in 2002), which the salesman at the bike shop said would be perfect for the long road trip I was planning to take the following summer. (I’ve been trying to take the cross-NY-on-the-Erie-Canal-path trip for about 5 years now, just haven’t been able to take the time off to do it yet.)  Now that I’ve been riding it for several years, I don’t think it is suited for a long-distance ride like that, but it is perfect for the style of riding I do every day. It didn’t come with fenders, so I added them, because I am not happy about getting a rain-mud stripe up my back or between my legs.

I also added a rear rack, to which I can hang panniers (I wish Americans would just say “baskets” instead of panniers–that’s what the word means in French). I used to exclusively carry my gear in panniers, because I liked how they lowered my center of gravity and kept my back from having to carry a heavy load. But I’ve been backpacking it for a while, because it is just a little simpler loading my stuff than removing the “baskets” –which could really use a more ergonomically friendly method of carrying them than the luggage-like handles that mine have–perhaps someday I’ll do some shopping for a better design. Since I ride hard to work (I can’t pedal leisurely, because I work about 7.5 miles from here, and I always leave home “just in time” so that I have to rush to get to the office on time), I tend to arrive heated up, sweaty, and I take advantage of the college’s fitness center locker room to shower and change into office clothes. If I didn’t have the shower facilities, I’d have to leave home earlier and pedal more slowly, but I still think I’d want to change my clothes from bike clothes to office clothes in a closet or bathroom. I know a lot of people who bicycle commute in Buffalo who DON’T have that luxury, so they ride to work in their work clothes.

Bicycling should not be a problem if you encounter a bit of rain, so you may want to look into getting some decent rain gear to keep in your bike bag. Breathable is best, and don’t go cheap if you don’t have to, because the cheap stuff just doesn’t last–trust me on that one! I bought a cheap set of rain pants for a 65-mile ride a couple years ago, expecting to hit some rain on and off throughout the ride. About 10 miles into the ride, the pant-legs started ripping, and it wasn’t long before they ripped open along the entire length and opened up like parachutes, creating a lot of drag in the wind. I took them off, and rode the rest of the trip in shorts only. That was the day the “October Storm” hit Western New York, and I rode at least 40 miles in blinding snow, wearing shorts. Hypothermia is not fun. If I’d had better rain gear, even with the snow, I would have been warm enough, because it would have kept much of my own body heat inside and the wet out. As it was, I was soaked through, and that is how I lost so much body heat.

I said I won’t be getting a racing bike, but there are times when I’m riding through downtown Buffalo that the wind hits me so hard–those concrete canyons can really focus the wind coming off Lake Erie–that I’m working as hard as I can just to move forward. On days like that, I wish I had what they call “drop handlebars” so that my torso would be flatter into the wind, making it a bit easier to move forward. The comfort handlebars I have on the hybrid are good for all the other ride conditions I am in, but I did add a pair of bar ends so that I have a couple options for how I sit and hold on to the handlebars–on longer rides, it can be a little numbing to just hang on to the handlebars in the same position for hours. This article on wikipedia explains handlebars better than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_handlebar

Bikes that come with disk brakes usually cost more than bikes that have standard brakes, but I think disk brakes are worth it. My hybrid has standard brakes, and as long as I keep them maintained and properly adjusted, they are effective. I’m not a good bicycle mechanic though, so that is often not the case. A mountain bike I have does have disk brakes, and they are amazing. I can stop on a dime with them, and the maintenance is almost nil. The main advantage of disk brakes is that they work no matter how wet they get. When your rims get wet from rain or puddles, standard brakes don’t have as much stopping force.

My hybrid has a front suspension fork, and I have mixed feelings about that. One the one hand, Buffalo’s streets have a lot of bumps, so it is nice to have the suspension fork take some of those bumps for me. On the other hand, since I do tend to ride hard, a lot of the energy I’m trying to put into the pedals ends up being absorbed by the suspension. I notice it most when I’m starting up from a red light or trying to rapidly increase my speed to move through traffic.

Lastly, a good bike shop should measure you and make sure the frame is really the right size. They shouldn’t charge extra for that, but there are some high-level pro shops that will spend hours with their customers fitting a bike, and it is only fair that they charge for that. Hopefully the bike shop where you get your bike will let you take a ride on the bike before you’re committed to buying it. They will also tell you that you should come back to the shop after X number of miles (my bike shop said 75 miles) so that they can tighten up anything that comes loose during your initial shakedown miles. They shouldn’t charge extra for that, either.

Other gear advice I have is to wear good gloves. I have several pairs, depending on what weather I’m expecting and what kind of riding I’ll be doing. When I’m going on a wild ride, I wear my gloves that have Kevlar in the palms and fingers, so that if I do hit the ground, rocks and glass won’t cut into my hand when I land. For casual riding, I have half-finger gloves that have great gel pads in the palm and fingers so that I don’t get calluses. The down side is that I get funny tan lines.

Always wear light-colored clothing, make sure your reflectors are aimed properly, use lights at night (there are some great lights from Europe that don’t use batteries, but are powered by inductive electricity generated when magnets on the spokes pass magnets on the light fixture–just google “reel lights”). Always wear a helmet, and if you crash just once, consider the helmet no longer protective, because even if you can’t see cracks in it, the foam in the helmet is designed to absorb impact forces in such a way that tiny cracks can form inside the foam where you can’t see them–and once those cracks are there, the foam can’t impact absorb forces as well.