The Best Bike for the Bucks - shopping for a bicycle means finding good shop - Buyers Guide

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, March, 1999 by Jane Bennett Clark

Finding the right bicycle starts with finding the right bicycle shop.

It's my first time on a bike in a very long while, and my head is spinning along with the wheels as I wobble around an unfamiliar parking lot. I'm trying to keep straight the difference between a frame and a fork, a stem and a seatpost, chromoly and aluminum--not to mention what to do with all these gears. But a more pressing concern has presented itself.

How the heck do I get off this thing?

Okay, so my cycling skills have deteriorated a bit since the last time I acquired a bike, when the pavement seemed a whole lot closer and the key decision was whether to ask for the red Schwinn or the blue one. (The red one. Definitely.) In the past few years I've expended more energy on drinking coffee and checking my e-mail than on pumping and pedaling. But every spring my husband, a biking enthusiast, urges me to bond with him on the bike path, and this year I'm taking him up on the idea. If a bicycle exists for a short, sedentary, 40-plus desk jockey, I'll soon be hitting the trail--and I'm willing to spend up to $500 for this lifetime investment.

Naturally, before parting with that kind of money, I check out the cycling literature, whose technogeek style is a mite intimidating. But a few hours in the library yield the basics of bicycle anatomy (see the "THE ANATOMY OF BIKE"), as well as a rundown of bike categories.

The biggest seller by far is the mountain bike, whose knobby wheels and high seat keep riders vertical on rocky byways. The racing bike uses thin, smooth wheels as well as drop handlebars for hunkering down on the highway. The relatively new hybrid bike handles pavement plus the occasional bump, but sacrifices some of the speed of racers and the durability of mountain bikes. Finally, the cruiser, or beach bike, recalls the '50s, with the fat tires, wide seat and high handlebars of that first cherished two-wheeler.

CRUISING THE BIKE SHOPS

Finding the perfect bike also means finding the perfect bike shop, most likely one of the 6,800 specialty stores that together command 30% of the U.S. market. Bicycles at such shops start at about $200 and can run into the thousands for a top-quality racing bike; the average price is $350. Although bikes can be had for much less (say, $100) at department and discount stores, they are often of lower quality than bikes from specialty shops and come with little or no promise of service or maintenance.

A bike shop worth its spokes, on the other hand, will offer careful fitting and assembly, free adjustments for 30 days and free maintenance for a year. Store personnel will also help you match the bike to the purpose, be it jaunts up a mountainside or a buggylike ride down the boardwalk. Says Fred Clements of the National Bicycle Dealers Association, which represents specialty shops: "If you're a novice, it's almost more important to find a good bike shop than to decide ahead what bike you think you want. A good bike shop can help you identify your needs."

As I discovered in my quest, much depends on how big an inventory a shop has, which salesperson helps you and how busy the place is when you visit (for maximum attention, go early or on a weekday). Visits to several kinds of shops--national chains, local chains and independents--and return trips to a few of them are worth your time. As for comparison shopping, several of the stores I visited offered to match prices found elsewhere; one offered to take 10% off the lowest advertised price.

EDUCATION OF A NOVICE. So here I am, contemplating a line of bikes at a showroom of Performance Bike Shop, the Virginia-based chain that once sold bikes through catalogs but now operates out of retail stores. Mike, my salesman, probes until he elicits my innermost desires: I want a bike with as many gears as my neighborhood has hills (lots); wheels sturdy enough for a gravel bike path; a cushiony saddle for my city-slicker derriere; and a high riding posture reminiscent of Mary Poppins.

All of which translates to a hybrid bike, Mike says, pointing to Giant brand's Cypress model, at a reasonable $249. This 21-speed bike comes with a spring in the seatpost for shock absorption and fairly high handlebars; the height of the saddle can be adjusted with a quick, no-tools tug on a lever. He grabs one with a 15.5-inch frame, fiddles with the seatpost, adjusts the gears and invites me to take a test drive.

He also hands me a helmet, de rigueur for even the shortest spins. A helmet with an expanded polystyrene liner ($40 to $100) absorbs blows if, say, you happen to end up head over handlebars.

He doesn't, however, watch me get on the bike to check the fit. Oh, well: I venture forth into the parking lot, trying to analyze the bike's modern-day features without killing myself in the process. The grip-shift gears (you twist the handlebars rather than pull a lever) seem like a good idea, and the suspension provides cushioning against potholes. But the saddle feels rock-hard to a rusty rider like me. I'd like to test another bike and discuss my hopes and fears with Mike a little further--but when I return to the showroom, the place has filled up, and Mike is busy.