June 22, 2025 • 14 mins
If your just starting out on your cycling journey, buying a bike can be daunting...so many choices! I sift through the mud and try to offer a clear path for you to make an informed choice.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. My name's Dave and
this is a ride and thrive. This week I wanted
to talk about what type of bike you should buy. Okay,
so potentially quite a sticky subject because it is very personal.
But you might be looking at getting into the road
(00:21):
biking scene. You know, you might want to have a
little dabble, but you're not really sure. There's such an
overwhelming choice of bikes that you could go for. So
I'm going to try and narrow it down a bit. Now,
there are a number of questions and considerations that you're
going to need to think of before you settle on
a couple of options. Now, the first thing that you
(00:43):
need to think about is what type of riding you're
going to be doing. Now, we can straightforwardly split this
into two categories, on road and off road. Could get
a little bit muddy as we go on, muddy the
waters a little bit, but we'll start with on road
off road because you need to just do you want
a road bike or do you want a mountain bike? Now,
(01:04):
if you want to predominantly a road bike and you
maybe want to go off road a little bit onto bridleways,
then and byways. Then you could opt for a gravel bike,
but there are so many different sort of gravel bikes
out there. There are really off terrain, gnarly gravel bikes.
(01:28):
You can even get full suspension gravel bikes now, so
I would stick to if you want to get We're
going to be talking mostly about road bikes with maybe
a little bit of off road on them as well.
Otherwise we could be here all day talking about bikes.
So with that in mind, then you're going to have
two more things to consider. Now. The things to consider
(01:51):
are the type of bike that you want and the
type of bike that you need. Now, what I mean
by that is you might be taken in by all
the shiny marketing material of all these nice new bikes,
and you could be ending up spending a lot of
money on a bike that's uncomfortable and you don't like riding.
And if that's the case, it'll just end up in
(02:13):
the shed gathering dust. So you've really got to consider.
You know, you're yes, you want something shiny, but it's
got to be practical. So we can split down road
bikes into more subcategories as well, so you've got the
racing kind of bikes that are aerow and they're designed
(02:34):
to be ridden bent over in the drop handlebars, maximizing
the aero position and maximizing your times. You probably don't
be wanting to buy one of those, Like a canyon
air road would be one of those, for example, It
would be very uncomfortable as a first road bike. Now,
(02:57):
on the other hand, you have endurance road bikes. Now,
these bikes are designed to be ridden longer on sportieves,
which are organized by rides you pay to go on,
you know, anywhere between thirty fifty one hundred miles and
beyond that as well. So these bikes are designed to
(03:19):
be ridden a long way and still remain comfortable. Now
I would opt for this style of bike really, so
the canyon and dure race as it's called. And then
you've got a ribble endurance and the ribble all road
as well. Now they're designed with the geometry in mind,
(03:40):
the angles of the bike that you're riding in a
more upright position. You've still got the drops and you
can still get over if you want to, but the
general riding position will be more comfortable. Now you'll still
have the skinnier tires and the you know, the seats
on there and for all into t and purposes. It
(04:01):
is a road bike, however, it will look more comfortable
and be more comfortable to ride. Now, the best thing
you can try and do is to get yourself to
a shop and have a sit on a bike and
have a little go on it. Now, this isn't possible
with things like a Canyon and the Ribble. They do
(04:23):
have showrooms, however, they are mainly internet companies that you
buy online and they will do their best to fit
you the right bike. But in terms of getting there
to sit on the bike and have a go on one,
then you probably have to visit the showroom. It might
involve a little bit of travel. So you can get
(04:43):
yourself down to Halford's and have a sit on a Boardman.
Now the Boardman do a good range of bikes that
could be for endurance type bikes for sportives, so you
could go down to the Boardman and just to Helferd sorry,
sit on a Boardman and have have a go on
(05:06):
one of those and just see how it feels. Another
great place to go to a very accommodating I've found
is the Kathlon. Now they've just started doing their van
Reizel bikes, which are top of the line race bikes
that they the de Kathlon bike team actually race in
(05:28):
the Tour de France. However, they trickle down some of
that technology into much cheaper, much more friendly bikes that
you can go and have a go on. So the
other brand from the Kathlon is called Tryban, so you
(05:48):
could get yourself or have a look at a Tryban
five twenty, which again are quite comfortable to sit on.
I've had a a sit on one of those myself.
I've not ridden one and any distance in anger, but
you know, for a first bike, you get a lot
of bike for your money and you get to dip
your toe in the waters of road biking as well. Now,
(06:13):
interestingly enough, Canyon have just introduced their new Endurre Race
which is an all road bike in Jurors all road
I think it's called, and it is just below one
thousand pounds, which is going to bring me on to
my next point, and it is being has been mentioned
(06:34):
on various of the big cycling channels. GCN have mentioned it,
David Arthur Bikes has mentioned it, and Jimmy and the
guys at Cade Media they've also mentioned this bike and
they're all just raving about it, saying it's brilliant. You know,
it's at least at last we've got a bike out
(06:54):
there at a reasonable entry point that people can buy
and feel like they've got a road bike. But also,
you know, got great value for money to have a
lookout for that one as well. Now, the next point
I was going to make was on money now to
get a decent bike. I was going to say, you've
(07:14):
got to jump in around about the thousand pound mark
now to Kathlon with their triband their bikes start. I
think you can get one for around about five hundred.
But de Kathlon will give you a lot of bike
for your money for one thousand pounds, and so will
Boardman at Halford's. They will give you a lot of
(07:35):
bike for your money. And this new bike Canyon, the
Canyon Bike, the Era and Endures All Road that appears
to be a lot of bike for your money as well. However,
you've got to be prepared to shell out that money
in the first place. I think you've got to give
it a decent stab if you are serious about it.
(07:57):
You know, if you've done a bit of mountain biking
and you are serious about getting a road bike, then
you probably are looking at getting or paying around about
a thousand pounds to get a decent entry level bike. Again,
there are various ways. You know, you can get a
monthly in a lot of companies now are doing interest
free on a monthly. Some are doing up to three
(08:20):
years interest free credit, which is which is fantastic. You
can do the bike to work scheme, which is salary
sacrifice so that the money comes out at source and
you pay the bike off over the space of a
year and you get heavily discounted for that. There's lots
of incentives for the bike to work scheme, so there's
lots of different ways to pay for it. I just
(08:42):
wanted to put it out there that you're going to
have to spend that sort of money to get a
decent look into into the world of road biking now.
Most road bikes nowadays, I've got disc brakes, but I
mentioned and earlier my bike has got rim brakes and
(09:02):
I've been riding it happily with rim breaks. My mountain
bike has got disc brakes, but you don't miss what
you've never had, and you know, the pros have been
riding rim breaks for years, so quite happily in the
Tour de France. And so if a bike has rim breaks,
(09:24):
I wouldn't let that put you off as a first bike. Generally,
if a bike's cheaper and it's got dis brakes, they're
going to be heavy and the overall package is going
to be heavier, so it's just going to be harder
to pedal on the road. So yes, if you a
good value road bike might have hydraulic disc brakes, but
(09:45):
don't discount getting rim brakes either. So so where are
we are. Then I'll try and summarize all this. It
seems I've been waffling on quite a bit. You want
to be looking at the endurance end of the road
bike spectrum, so a bike that can be pedaled, you know,
(10:08):
all day with in relative comfort. So you don't want
to be having a race type or anything with air
row or anything like that, because you know you're going
to get far better gains through improving your fitness in
the first year or even two years. So you want
to be getting an endurance style road bike. You want
a tire clearance of at least thirty five millimeter if possible,
(10:33):
fit in thirty two millimeter tires would make it so
much more comfortable. My old school bike has twenty five
mill tires and they're pumped up to about eighty five
ninety PSI and I feel every bump in the road.
And I live in Yorkshire and the roads are very bumpy.
So yeah, I will go up on my tire size
(10:56):
when I get a new bike. So look look at
tire clearance. Look as to whether you can fit mudguards
if you're going to be riding it in winter, because
some bikes they don't come with mudguard mounts. So lots
of little things like that to look out for four
on bikes in terms of fit. Then a lot of
(11:18):
the bike websites have calculators on them, so you put
all your details in. Some are better than others. Your height,
your inside leg measurement, you know your arm length, and
it will spit out what sized bike you should buy
all right, so that they're quite good at getting you
sized up for the right for the right bike. So
(11:40):
really you're going to be getting a ballpark fit to
start with, just to get an idea. Once you've been
riding your bike for any length of time for six months,
you'll start to find out any niggles. You know, you
might end up getting numb hands of your riding for
more than two or three hours. Your feet might start
feeling normal, hurting, your should might be tight. That's when
(12:01):
you can start looking at tweaking any other sort of
any other things that you might need to tweak in
terms of bike fits. So so don't worry about bike
fit to start with. As long as you get the
right saddle size then and the right sized bike for
you for your height and for your reach and for
(12:23):
your your inside leg measurement, then you should be okay.
A few people might be might raise their eyebrows at that,
but as a beginner, I think you need to really
get on a bike and start riding as quickly as possible,
and then you will find out if there's any problems.
As long as you've got the right sized frame bike,
then anything else can be changed. You can train the
(12:45):
change the cranks, you can change the stem, you can
change the bars, you can change it almost you can
change any anything. But as long as you've got the
right sized frame, so so that can all be done.
Later on, you don't want to be spending outloads and
you want to buy a bike, and you want to
get out riding it as soon as possible, so hopefully
(13:06):
giving you some some food for thought there. So we're
looking at Canyon, we're looking at Boardman, We're looking at Boardman,
at Halford's, we're looking at Decathlon and Ribble. Really that
if you if you go on all those, have a look,
see what you can get for a thousand pounds. I
wouldn't worry about it not being carbon. You get an
(13:27):
aluminium frame that would be absolutely fine with carbon forks
would be a bonus. So yeah, so if you get
carbon frames on the cheaper ones, it means that the
components pay for it. So I'd rather have an aluminium
frame that's that's got better components than a carbon frame
with worse components. So so something else to think about.
(13:50):
Just settle on one, buy it and get yourself out riding. Okay, folks,
that's it for this week. Stay tuned for more health,
fitness and cycling related info coming up in the next
few weeks. Don't forget to email me Dave at Ride
and Thrive dot co dot uk. That's Dave at Ride,
(14:15):
Ride and Thrive dot co dot uk and let me
know what you would like to hear. On the podcast. Okay, folks,
I'll see you next time. Bye for now.
Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. My name's Dave and
this is a ride and thrive. This week I wanted
to talk about what type of bike you should buy. Okay,
so potentially quite a sticky subject because it is very personal.
But you might be looking at getting into the road
(00:21):
biking scene. You know, you might want to have a
little dabble, but you're not really sure. There's such an
overwhelming choice of bikes that you could go for. So
I'm going to try and narrow it down a bit. Now,
there are a number of questions and considerations that you're
going to need to think of before you settle on
a couple of options. Now, the first thing that you
(00:43):
need to think about is what type of riding you're
going to be doing. Now, we can straightforwardly split this
into two categories, on road and off road. Could get
a little bit muddy as we go on, muddy the
waters a little bit, but we'll start with on road
off road because you need to just do you want
a road bike or do you want a mountain bike? Now,
(01:04):
if you want to predominantly a road bike and you
maybe want to go off road a little bit onto bridleways,
then and byways. Then you could opt for a gravel bike,
but there are so many different sort of gravel bikes
out there. There are really off terrain, gnarly gravel bikes.
(01:28):
You can even get full suspension gravel bikes now, so
I would stick to if you want to get We're
going to be talking mostly about road bikes with maybe
a little bit of off road on them as well.
Otherwise we could be here all day talking about bikes.
So with that in mind, then you're going to have
two more things to consider. Now. The things to consider
(01:51):
are the type of bike that you want and the
type of bike that you need. Now, what I mean
by that is you might be taken in by all
the shiny marketing material of all these nice new bikes,
and you could be ending up spending a lot of
money on a bike that's uncomfortable and you don't like riding.
And if that's the case, it'll just end up in
(02:13):
the shed gathering dust. So you've really got to consider.
You know, you're yes, you want something shiny, but it's
got to be practical. So we can split down road
bikes into more subcategories as well, so you've got the
racing kind of bikes that are aerow and they're designed
(02:34):
to be ridden bent over in the drop handlebars, maximizing
the aero position and maximizing your times. You probably don't
be wanting to buy one of those, Like a canyon
air road would be one of those, for example, It
would be very uncomfortable as a first road bike. Now,
(02:57):
on the other hand, you have endurance road bikes. Now,
these bikes are designed to be ridden longer on sportieves,
which are organized by rides you pay to go on,
you know, anywhere between thirty fifty one hundred miles and
beyond that as well. So these bikes are designed to
(03:19):
be ridden a long way and still remain comfortable. Now
I would opt for this style of bike really, so
the canyon and dure race as it's called. And then
you've got a ribble endurance and the ribble all road
as well. Now they're designed with the geometry in mind,
(03:40):
the angles of the bike that you're riding in a
more upright position. You've still got the drops and you
can still get over if you want to, but the
general riding position will be more comfortable. Now you'll still
have the skinnier tires and the you know, the seats
on there and for all into t and purposes. It
(04:01):
is a road bike, however, it will look more comfortable
and be more comfortable to ride. Now, the best thing
you can try and do is to get yourself to
a shop and have a sit on a bike and
have a little go on it. Now, this isn't possible
with things like a Canyon and the Ribble. They do
(04:23):
have showrooms, however, they are mainly internet companies that you
buy online and they will do their best to fit
you the right bike. But in terms of getting there
to sit on the bike and have a go on one,
then you probably have to visit the showroom. It might
involve a little bit of travel. So you can get
(04:43):
yourself down to Halford's and have a sit on a Boardman.
Now the Boardman do a good range of bikes that
could be for endurance type bikes for sportives, so you
could go down to the Boardman and just to Helferd sorry,
sit on a Boardman and have have a go on
(05:06):
one of those and just see how it feels. Another
great place to go to a very accommodating I've found
is the Kathlon. Now they've just started doing their van
Reizel bikes, which are top of the line race bikes
that they the de Kathlon bike team actually race in
(05:28):
the Tour de France. However, they trickle down some of
that technology into much cheaper, much more friendly bikes that
you can go and have a go on. So the
other brand from the Kathlon is called Tryban, so you
(05:48):
could get yourself or have a look at a Tryban
five twenty, which again are quite comfortable to sit on.
I've had a a sit on one of those myself.
I've not ridden one and any distance in anger, but
you know, for a first bike, you get a lot
of bike for your money and you get to dip
your toe in the waters of road biking as well. Now,
(06:13):
interestingly enough, Canyon have just introduced their new Endurre Race
which is an all road bike in Jurors all road
I think it's called, and it is just below one
thousand pounds, which is going to bring me on to
my next point, and it is being has been mentioned
(06:34):
on various of the big cycling channels. GCN have mentioned it,
David Arthur Bikes has mentioned it, and Jimmy and the
guys at Cade Media they've also mentioned this bike and
they're all just raving about it, saying it's brilliant. You know,
it's at least at last we've got a bike out
(06:54):
there at a reasonable entry point that people can buy
and feel like they've got a road bike. But also,
you know, got great value for money to have a
lookout for that one as well. Now, the next point
I was going to make was on money now to
get a decent bike. I was going to say, you've
(07:14):
got to jump in around about the thousand pound mark
now to Kathlon with their triband their bikes start. I
think you can get one for around about five hundred.
But de Kathlon will give you a lot of bike
for your money for one thousand pounds, and so will
Boardman at Halford's. They will give you a lot of
(07:35):
bike for your money. And this new bike Canyon, the
Canyon Bike, the Era and Endures All Road that appears
to be a lot of bike for your money as well. However,
you've got to be prepared to shell out that money
in the first place. I think you've got to give
it a decent stab if you are serious about it.
(07:57):
You know, if you've done a bit of mountain biking
and you are serious about getting a road bike, then
you probably are looking at getting or paying around about
a thousand pounds to get a decent entry level bike. Again,
there are various ways. You know, you can get a
monthly in a lot of companies now are doing interest
free on a monthly. Some are doing up to three
(08:20):
years interest free credit, which is which is fantastic. You
can do the bike to work scheme, which is salary
sacrifice so that the money comes out at source and
you pay the bike off over the space of a
year and you get heavily discounted for that. There's lots
of incentives for the bike to work scheme, so there's
lots of different ways to pay for it. I just
(08:42):
wanted to put it out there that you're going to
have to spend that sort of money to get a
decent look into into the world of road biking now.
Most road bikes nowadays, I've got disc brakes, but I
mentioned and earlier my bike has got rim brakes and
(09:02):
I've been riding it happily with rim breaks. My mountain
bike has got disc brakes, but you don't miss what
you've never had, and you know, the pros have been
riding rim breaks for years, so quite happily in the
Tour de France. And so if a bike has rim breaks,
(09:24):
I wouldn't let that put you off as a first bike. Generally,
if a bike's cheaper and it's got dis brakes, they're
going to be heavy and the overall package is going
to be heavier, so it's just going to be harder
to pedal on the road. So yes, if you a
good value road bike might have hydraulic disc brakes, but
(09:45):
don't discount getting rim brakes either. So so where are
we are. Then I'll try and summarize all this. It
seems I've been waffling on quite a bit. You want
to be looking at the endurance end of the road
bike spectrum, so a bike that can be pedaled, you know,
(10:08):
all day with in relative comfort. So you don't want
to be having a race type or anything with air
row or anything like that, because you know you're going
to get far better gains through improving your fitness in
the first year or even two years. So you want
to be getting an endurance style road bike. You want
a tire clearance of at least thirty five millimeter if possible,
(10:33):
fit in thirty two millimeter tires would make it so
much more comfortable. My old school bike has twenty five
mill tires and they're pumped up to about eighty five
ninety PSI and I feel every bump in the road.
And I live in Yorkshire and the roads are very bumpy.
So yeah, I will go up on my tire size
(10:56):
when I get a new bike. So look look at
tire clearance. Look as to whether you can fit mudguards
if you're going to be riding it in winter, because
some bikes they don't come with mudguard mounts. So lots
of little things like that to look out for four
on bikes in terms of fit. Then a lot of
(11:18):
the bike websites have calculators on them, so you put
all your details in. Some are better than others. Your height,
your inside leg measurement, you know your arm length, and
it will spit out what sized bike you should buy
all right, so that they're quite good at getting you
sized up for the right for the right bike. So
(11:40):
really you're going to be getting a ballpark fit to
start with, just to get an idea. Once you've been
riding your bike for any length of time for six months,
you'll start to find out any niggles. You know, you
might end up getting numb hands of your riding for
more than two or three hours. Your feet might start
feeling normal, hurting, your should might be tight. That's when
(12:01):
you can start looking at tweaking any other sort of
any other things that you might need to tweak in
terms of bike fits. So so don't worry about bike
fit to start with. As long as you get the
right saddle size then and the right sized bike for
you for your height and for your reach and for
(12:23):
your your inside leg measurement, then you should be okay.
A few people might be might raise their eyebrows at that,
but as a beginner, I think you need to really
get on a bike and start riding as quickly as possible,
and then you will find out if there's any problems.
As long as you've got the right sized frame bike,
then anything else can be changed. You can train the
(12:45):
change the cranks, you can change the stem, you can
change the bars, you can change it almost you can
change any anything. But as long as you've got the
right sized frame, so so that can all be done.
Later on, you don't want to be spending outloads and
you want to buy a bike, and you want to
get out riding it as soon as possible, so hopefully
(13:06):
giving you some some food for thought there. So we're
looking at Canyon, we're looking at Boardman, We're looking at Boardman,
at Halford's, we're looking at Decathlon and Ribble. Really that
if you if you go on all those, have a look,
see what you can get for a thousand pounds. I
wouldn't worry about it not being carbon. You get an
(13:27):
aluminium frame that would be absolutely fine with carbon forks
would be a bonus. So yeah, so if you get
carbon frames on the cheaper ones, it means that the
components pay for it. So I'd rather have an aluminium
frame that's that's got better components than a carbon frame
with worse components. So so something else to think about.
(13:50):
Just settle on one, buy it and get yourself out riding. Okay, folks,
that's it for this week. Stay tuned for more health,
fitness and cycling related info coming up in the next
few weeks. Don't forget to email me Dave at Ride
and Thrive dot co dot uk. That's Dave at Ride,
(14:15):
Ride and Thrive dot co dot uk and let me
know what you would like to hear. On the podcast. Okay, folks,
I'll see you next time. Bye for now.
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