New Bicycle Advice

Rich, I understand you intend to commute daily on the bike you are looking to purchase.

Here's what I would suggest. Since you seem to be new to biking, you should look around your intended riding routes and see what other people are using and then consider where your physique and exercise preferences lie. This will allow you to leverage what other people have already learned, sorted out for themselves and let you identify where where your own potential lies within the spectrum of riding preferences that are practical for your intended routes. Once you narrow down most of the issues, you can even become more creative with your biking, after you rack up some useful experiences of your own. But for starters, you would do best by learning from people who have already figured out how to commute on your routes.

I would not pick a 1-speed or a multispeed bike based on finances or maintenance requirements. Neither of these 2 issues would affect anyone if they are looking to optimize their daily biking commute. As I said, you should first reflect on where your biking potential lies, before deciding on what part of the technical spectrum you should shop your bike from. However IMO, unless you are race-training on a fixed wheel, 1-speeds are only for posing. It's best to join a serious bike group/club to learn how to ride fixed wheel (fixies) as doing so with no experience on a city route is not a good idea.

As for buying used over new, be very careful buying sight unseen And you need to be an expert to pick a good used one or simply lucky - same as with cars. I would also not buy a used carbon frame or carbon fork bike as structural damage to carbon components are often not visible... until they suddenly fail.

Enjoy your commutes!

 

Sounds like the perfect situation for one of the newer-style city bikes. Internal gearing, fenders, and upright bars, but more lightweight and with less relaxed geometry than yesteryear. Swobo makes bikes like this. City bikes are super versatile and are almost always the right answer unless you're going to suit up for a road ride or plan to go bombing down some single-track.

Outside BMX and the velodrome, single-speeds and fixties are an aesthetic statement, not a practical solution to a real problem.

 

Rich, I re-read your original message and I realize I didn't quite put together the full sense of what you explained. I thought you simply wanted to explore bikes beyond the mountain bike you currently commute on. I missed your point about the campus environments.

I was enthusiastic about cycling when I was in university. I was an active member in the local bike club and learned from experienced riders and racers including a buddy who was the provincial time trial champion. If you get serious about riding bikes, you will soon have multiple bikes and your daily ride would be on a beater that mimics the feel of your "serious bike(s)" but is otherwise heavier, more robust and less expensive to kit/repair. We saved our serious bikes for races, important tours and important training rides.

Do you intend to train on the campus grounds or do you simply want to commute to, around and back from campus? You should reflect on your personal nature, whether you are naturally competitive, tend to always go to the limits; or do you normally take a more practical approach and restrain how far you delve into sports. In either case, I think you should begin with understanding what sort of bike frame your next bike should have. This will lead to understanding the level of components the frame should use. Multiple gearing will make the bike versatile. You can always put a track cog on a road bike. That's what we used to do - otherwise riding around the street on a track frame is asking for grief.

If you are competitive you will eventually look at carbon frames which tend to be much lighter and more compliant in feel but know that they are also generally not as durable as metal frames unless you are very careful and avoid accidents. Otherwise I think steel alloy and aluminium frames are generally more practical if you want to restrain your budget and urge to be competitive. Ask bike shops about bikes left over from previous years - they can be offered with steep discounts in late Fall and Winter. Bike shows also feature attractive deals but you must do your research beforehand.

FWIW, the weather here is pretty awful at the moment so I train on a carbon cyclocross bike with fenders doing circuits in suburban neighbourhoods that lend well to allowing me to make (almost) all right hand turns (so I don't have to stop or cross intersections). I imagine your campus will offer similar or better conditions, just keep a lookout for the buses, local wildlife and unsuspecting students.

 

I crash everything at slow speeds. Fast has been no problem. My iceboat is carbon fiber for strength & speed, but I've avoided carbon fiber on my road bike. Titanium holds up better when you loose your bike out from under you after slipping on thin oil or a road full of milk...yeah, I've done that too...

 

Unless you are riding in a lot of rain, and or snow disc brakes wont make much difference...you can also throw some narrow wheels on your mountain bike to make your bike an easier ride also...

 

They want folks to buy complete new bikes and discard all their existing (and often very expensive, very high tech) wheelsets and components. Disc brakes compromise many critical features of well-designed road bikes - aerodynamics, ease of maintenance, low weight, broad selection of components as well as aesthetics.

Hacking MTB brakes onto road frames with no regard for common sense or love of the sport is cynical and it's not just me who say this, all the bike shops here I speak to also see it the same way. They don't want them and serious bike riders don't want them either. Even the pro tours, those venues that function as show windows for merchandise don't want them and they have been politically pressured to take them and flog them nonetheless. At the end of the day, the teams and riders still want to be in the game and win races. Disc brakes do not make good sense to them.

I guess it happens when greedy people sink a huge whack of money into useless low-tech technology and inventory hoping shoppers would be just dumb enough buy them. They were looking for easy money but now they're stuck and want to pass their mistakes onto unwary shoppers.

 

I don't know much about coaster brakes but they have been around for a very long time and they worked OK, sort of, for slow-moving bikes. They don't provide the modulation and control you would want if you need to suddenly stop from high speeds. Front brakes give better stopping power but coaster brakes are rear-only. They're going to skid if you brake too hard and suddenly so they're really meant for gentle riding.

If you really want the novelty of riding a track frame or fit in with the campus scene I think you'd be better off to get a fixie like a Bianchi Pista which is a metal track frame with 2 rim brakes as well as a fixed wheel. Just be aware that you should allow for a bit of a learning curve.

BTW, fixies often come with brake levers that operate from the tops of road bars instead of along the drops so you can ride with a more upright position. Tri bars are not comfortable for casual riding. They won't work for what you intend and you'd look kind of silly (way over posed).

In the end, hopefully you will realize that riding a bike in of itself is the reward.

 

I haven't read this entire thread; but I would compare a rear hub coaster-brake to driving a car with only a hand brake. majority of the braking is done by the front wheels on a bike, just like a car - don't do it!

Mountain bike, road bike - doesn't matter for fitness, get something you're comfortable with and fits you well.

mountain bike components on a road bike is unlikely to work without major modifications. I may suggest you're over-thinking this Do you want to ride dirt or road or both? go from there.

 

No. Bad idea unless you are a masochist. You will waste money, time and lost biking opportunity. Make up your mind - do you want to ride road or play with unorthodox ideas? it's easy enough to find an inexpensive road groupset on eBay.

Again, do you really want to ride road or play with unorthodox bike ideas? First of all, any suspension component on a road bike would make it very energy inefficient. An energy efficient road bike is the opposite to an effective MTB - a fast road bike has to be very stiff (and light) so the effort from your legs fully transmit to forward motion.

Suspension bikes are completely different in focus - MTBs spend a lot of time descending tricky rough downhills, hitting or jumping over bumps. MTB = lots of downhill energy absorption. Road bike designs focus a lot on ascending smooth uphills. Road = lots of energy transmission (to the road), tackling high winds/high speeds and nasty uphills.

So good road bikes need to be stiff, aerodynamic and light. Get it?

 

I use only fixed gears with aero bars now, basically pursuit bikes. It's like the minimum common denominator of bikes, you can't go wrong. Without rear brake and gears they're also pretty hard to beat weight-wise and there isn't much to steal or break if you leave it locked outside. Training on one also makes your pedalling rounder and more efficient and as you'll have to stand up on climbs, it makes your upper body fit too.

 

Cafe Racer

 

Or a chopper

 

Good one!

 

...can be fun and good training; gotta start slow though, get gearing right, make sure toe straps keep feet fastened and... anticipate braking.

 

One brake at the front is all you need if you ride fixed. You just apply force back-pedalling for the rear without even noticing it. On Tri bars makes even more sense as you can decelerate without taking hands off the bars.
I used to race road bikes but since in London where it's pretty much flat, a good light track bike with one brake at the front is all I need and the workout is great. You get in the zone when there's absolutely nothing else to think about rather than pedalling. No gear changes, relaxing your legs, taking it easy. Just going faster and faster like in a velodrome.
Obviously you can flop the rear wheel on most of them to ride single speed at the beginning but then it gets natural and kinda feels weird on regular bikes. In Amsterdams or the Netherlands in general there is hardly anything else than flats so gears are not necessary and fixed are generally faster. I love them, build my own ones and sell some too