Bicycle enthusiasts...What do you ride

4

4me4good

New member
...and why.

I currently have a 15" Trek mens 7200 hybrid. It is ok but I have trouble with my fingers and toes going numb on longer rides. I rode my husband's road bike yesterday and I loved it. Granted, it does not fit me properly but it was more fun than any bike I have had for years. Here is my delimma. I now want to look at a road bike for me but have no clue what to look for. I am female, 5'3" and have a hard time getting a comfortable fit. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
I have always enjoyed off road, mountain biking. For that i would always suggest the "mongoose" brand of bikes.
in fact I have been using them since i was 5 (for all my biking needs) and never had a single problem with any of them.

Seriously the only brand i have ever used(in any product line) that has never once disappointed me.
 
I've recently bought an 18" *cheap* ladies hybrid to cycle to work (total of 20 miles a day) that I'm getting on really well with. If I stick with the cycling, I'll probably wear it out pretty quickly, and when I do I'll look to replace it with a decent road bike. At the moment, I'm researching road bikes by buying all the road cycling magazines I can get hold of and reading everything I can find on the internet, which I think is the best way to start out. Once I get some idea of what I want, I'll start going round bike stores and trying different bikes out for size and comfort. So, that's what I'd recommend. The more money you plan to spend, the more research you need to do before you buy.
 
Nothing beats having a good bike dealer fit you properly. Having the right size is more important than the bike itself.

Make sure you go to a bike shop where the employees are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Feel free to shop around and ask if you can try out various bikes. Avoid buying a bike from places like Walmart.

Tell the dealer what you are planning to do, and I'm sure he'll recommend the proper model. If you go to several shops and get a hands-on look at some bikes, you'll get a good feel for what you need.

Since you are a road bike novice, as long as you get one from a good brand, you'll be fine. As you probably already know, Trek is a fine brand.

As for me, I also ride a Trek hybrid. I really like it because it's tough enough that I don't have to worry about tire blowouts. The ride is smooth enough that I can cover a lot of mileage, but difficult enough that it provides a good workout.
 
Personally my favorite bike is a custom Santa Cruz Heckler... about a $4K bike.

If you like the road bike types, I'd look at a Trek 1000. It's about the cheapest racing style of road bike you can get, but I can go just as fast on that bike as I could on a $2,500 Felt F55. I have a perfect condition 54cm Trek 1000 Discovery Channel edition for sale for $550 but at 5'3" you might need a 52cm or something. If you can ride a 54 and you like it, holler back if you're interested.
 
Road bikes

I find road bikes are far more motivational to ride than anything else. Get on a light weight road bike and you can cycle for hours, see some great country and slowly burn off some calories.:)
Sit on a town bike, or worse, a mountain bike, and its a struggle all the way.:mad:
 
Mine is a cheap mountain bike that I picked up off a shelf at the local superstore whilst shopping for the groceries. But anything else!
 
Wow...thanks for all the input. It is very helpful. I think the plan of action at this point is I will inherit my husband's Trek 1000 (which he has had for a couple of years) and let him upgrade. I will ride it for a while and see how I like it. We took it to our local bike shop and had it adjusted to fit me. It is a smidge tall but the fit while I am on it is pretty good.

Next question: how important (or beneficial) is it to have clip in shoes (cleats?) I know all 'serious' riders have them but is it worth the investment?
 
corndogggy said:
Personally my favorite bike is a custom Santa Cruz Heckler... about a $4K bike.

If you like the road bike types, I'd look at a Trek 1000. It's about the cheapest racing style of road bike you can get, but I can go just as fast on that bike as I could on a $2,500 Felt F55. I have a perfect condition 54cm Trek 1000 Discovery Channel edition for sale for $550 but at 5'3" you might need a 52cm or something. If you can ride a 54 and you like it, holler back if you're interested.
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Thanks for the offer corndogggy. My husband's is actually a 50cm and is a little tall. I learned last night at the bike shop, will several employees standing around critiquing, that I have "short legs and a long torso". It was not said in mean spirit but still enlightening.
 
ToothlessFerret said:
Mine is a cheap mountain bike that I picked up off a shelf at the local superstore whilst shopping for the groceries. But anything else!
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I never knew bikes were measured in "dog power" :) Seriously, he is georgous and I am sure a great excercise buddy. I have a Llewellin Setter that is such a spaz I would never dream of harnassing him to anything that could crash and hurt me. He is a great running buddy though. It always seems he is judging me by saying "is this as fast as we are gonna go- Dad runs alot faster"
 
4me4good said:
Next question: how important (or beneficial) is it to have clip in shoes (cleats?) I know all 'serious' riders have them but is it worth the investment?
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More than anything they just help you be able to pull straight back on the pedals. You can't do that on platform pedals, so you can get more power, and also you're more fluid, enabling you to pedal at a higher rpm, which is very important for maximum efforts if you want to go at maximum speed. You can't push straight forward with platforms either, but if you get the toe clips you can.

Goofballing around... it's just not important. I wear platform pedals on my mountain bike on really rough rides because it's safer, that split second that it takes to get unclipped is a lifesaver sometimes. Everybody I ride with often makes a comment about it, then they wonder why I can ride through so much more crazy mess than them. So, it just depends on what you want to do.
 
WatchMyWeight said:
I find road bikes are far more motivational to ride than anything else. Get on a light weight road bike and you can cycle for hours, see some great country and slowly burn off some calories.:)
Sit on a town bike, or worse, a mountain bike, and its a struggle all the way.:mad:
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I'm the opposite of this really. I really don't think that a bike has to be lightweight at all for you to be able to ride it for hours. Actually, with weight comes stability, and also less vibrations, so therefore they are more comfortable, such as steel bikes. Also lightweight road bikes has that typical roadie positioning, which is fast, but that's about it, that's not the most comfy position.

As for mountain bikes being a struggle... yeah my local cycling club has that mentality too. Let's just say they have some mighty strange looks on their faces when they figure out that the guy up front pulling their line is riding a 6" travel freeride bike that weighs nearly 35 pounds, has handlebars that are the width of a small golf club, and doesn't even have a big chainring, only a bash guard. I've ridden that same bike for 8 hours straight per day for a week straight in the roughest trails I could find in Colorado.

Basically, it's the man... not the machine. ;)
 
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A bit off topic, but with the growing popularity of HIIT workouts, it's worth mentioning.

HIIT training on a moving bicycle is a bad idea.

For a change of pace, I thought it would be good to do a HIIT workout on my bicycle. My neighborhood has broad streets and no traffic, so I thought I'd be safe. Stupid me. After a half dozen intervals, I started to feel really lightheaded. If I had kept up the same intensity, I'm pretty sure I would have fallen off my bike.
 
fervor said:
HIIT training on a moving bicycle is a bad idea.

For a change of pace, I thought it would be good to do a HIIT workout on my bicycle. My neighborhood has broad streets and no traffic, so I thought I'd be safe. Stupid me. After a half dozen intervals, I started to feel really lightheaded. If I had kept up the same intensity, I'm pretty sure I would have fallen off my bike.
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Interval training on a bike is a perfectly fine idea... assuming you're in shape enough to handle it. Interval training on the bike, on foot, or in any other scenario is a bad idea if you're not physically able to handle it.
 
fervor said:
Right. Interval training is fine, but I was talking about HIIT.

Quote from a post in the Words of Wisdom section of this forum. http://weight-loss.fitness.com/harsh-truth/10275-clearing-up-hiit-guide-hitt.html#post211446
"After a real HIIT session you will feel light headed, dizzy, you may even throw up, I know I have."

I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like a good match with a moving bicycle, pavement, cars, and other hard objects.
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Ah, here we go again. I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm quite sure that highly trained cyclists knows how to sprint balls out and do exactly what you would consider HIIT without passing out and wrecking. That's the whole point, you overload yourself with lactic acid in order to train yourself to buffer hydrogen ions. They just call them intervals though, because it's all maximum intensity. I just can't make myself call it HIIT.

But yes, if you're not physically capable of this and you overdo it anyway, you can very well get hurt, but that's not cycling specific.
 
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4me4good said:
...and why.

I currently have a 15" Trek mens 7200 hybrid. It is ok but I have trouble with my fingers and toes going numb on longer rides. I rode my husband's road bike yesterday and I loved it. Granted, it does not fit me properly but it was more fun than any bike I have had for years. Here is my delimma. I now want to look at a road bike for me but have no clue what to look for. I am female, 5'3" and have a hard time getting a comfortable fit. Anyone have any suggestions?
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sounds like an adjustment problem (seat/ handlebars or both) or its to big or small for you.
 
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Also if your toes are going numb, your feet could be hitting the pedals wrong. If you have clipless and it's doing this, often your cleats could be too far forward, or otherwise not lined up with the balls of your feet. Your shoes could be too flexible too.

If your fingers are numb, assuming it's not just cold outside, usually it's because you have way too much pressure on your hands. Sometimes you can have the wrong handlebar sweep and other weird stuff like crappy gloves and end up pinching a nerve, which can actually happen with the numb toes too. But yeah, alot of times if somebody has the seat too far forward then the handlebars are too far forward as well such as with a long stem or one that isn't high enough, they'll obviously be leaning forward too much and put alot of weight on their hands, and they'll get numbness, especially if the grips and gloves are crappy.
 
Thanks for all the input. I took a ride on my newly inherited, newly adjusted bike yesterday. I only went about 5.5 miles but it was pretty comfortable. Only the toes on my left foot got a little numb at the end. I think overall a better bike for me.

I don't know what to call them but the "baskets" that your feet go in -are they comparable to clip in shoes?
 
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