How To Choose Your First Road Bike: Beginner Series Ep. 1

Do you want to start cycling? Then welcome to our new beginner series! In these 5 videos we will help you: find your first bike, set it up, maintain it, know what to wear, build confidence on the road, and find people to ride with. In this episode, we start right at the beginning; how to choose your first road bike! Manon goes through everything you need to think about when looking for a bike: size, material, pedals and more!

0:00 – Intro
1:00 – What type of bike do you need?
3:06 – Budget
4:24 – Frame material
5:55 – The fit of your bike
7:24 – Components
8:30 – Second hand

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If you have any questions Manon OR you have some tips for new cyclists, put them in the comment section below! 💬

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welcome to my first video in the beginner Series where I’m going to guide you step by step into this world of cycling we’re going to be covering everything from choosing your first bike setting it up maintaining it what to wear how to ride on the road how to build your confidence how to find people to ride with [Music] in this first episode we are going to take you through how to choose your first road bike but if you are new to the world of cycling then it can be really overwhelming trying to choose your first road bike there are so many different brands models and price ranges to choose from but when it comes to choosing your first road bike it’s really important that it’s comfortable suitable and reliable for you so how do you go about choosing the right road bike when there are so many different ones to choose from well in this video I’m going to tell you everything you need to know when it comes to buying your first road bike first up let’s address the elephant in the room bikes and anything to do with cycling isn’t a cheap sport but don’t worry you don’t have to break the bank to get a decent bike [Music] first up you want to think what you’re going to use the bike for what type of riding are you going to be doing are you going to be doing long distance rides are you going to be doing your first race maybe are you going to be riding for leisure or a bit of gravel or do you want a bike that can just do it all I’ve come down to my local bike shop 73 degrees not far from GCM megabase now if you are in the market for a new bike it’s always worth coming down to your local bike shop having a look around having a look at what you might like and they’re always really friendly in there so let’s go [Music] endurance road bike great for those long hours long distances big days in the saddle this is an error road bike great if you like going fast and you’re into a bit of sprinting a gravel bike great for a bit of everything you can take it on the road you can take it on muddy gravel tracks do a bit of everything on that this is an e-hybrid bike great for commuting to work going to get your shopping or buzzing around town so Jim when you have a beginner cyclist coming into the shop wanting to buy their first road bikes what kind of questions do you ask them to determine what bike’s best for them yeah so kind of we start with some pretty basic questions um where they’re going to be riding um if there’s kind of an an end game to it if they’re going to be doing long rides maybe a charity sponsored ride or a sportive or commuting especially if you’re kind of around bath or local area it’s quite hilly so we’ve kind of got a look at the gearing of the bike very important very important yeah if they want to be using bike all year round then potentially have a facility to put a mud guard on there or a rack or something if they are commuting and then we can basically ask about the budget how they’re paying for the bike if they’re paying it outright or if it’s a cycle scheme and then we can kind of show them some actual bikes and see what they like the look of as well which is usually very very important now I’m gonna see Alex our gcn Tech presenter and he knows everything about bike budget bike frames components of a lot he’s filming I heard a bit of reminders particles sorry I hope I’m not interrupting anything too important but I was wondering if I could pick the brains on a few things yeah what we’re going to talk about first then right first of all I want to know about budget how much would you recommend to someone buying their first ever road bike spending or what do they need to spend um it’s quite tricky to give like a figure in terms of how much people should spend on their bike if you’re really trying to get into cycling and you’re also trying to understand what type of cycling you’re going to start doing be that maybe commuting to work just using a bike as transport or riding in groups of the weekends you need to kind of decide what it is you’re doing but as you get into cycling that could evolve and change so therefore you might find yourself in a situation where you think oh I really need a different style of bike or perhaps a second bike and if you’ve spent all your money on the first one well you haven’t got any spare so I think in that sense I personally would really be looking at well under a thousand pound Mark or maybe even something along 500 pounds especially just for people to get started and get going right Alex frame material there are a lot of different frame materials to choose from talk us through each and every one of them first generally within cycling I would say there’s probably four different materials to choose from you’ve got steel and aluminum which are really traditional and perhaps would come slightly more at the budget-friendly end of the scale you’ve then got carbon fiber which is really the material of choice across the broad range of budget within cycling at the moment the price of a bike made of carbon fiber can vary hugely but the advantages of that are that it’s lightweight it’s strong in certain ways and it can be made into lots of different shapes and then there is also another material which is titanium titanium has similar properties to aluminum and steel in terms of its like robust and can be welded together but Tam is particularly expensive it is hard to beat carbon fiber in terms of all of the different properties and aspects that you consider especially if you’re weighing up weight performance the shapes that could be made and take it into account price because there are some really good reasonably priced carbon frames out there that’s not to say that the other options are no good compared to that they’re just different and have different characteristics in a slightly different aspect and price always ties into that but so does robustness reliability and just how long necessary that frame is going to last you foreign next up the fit of the bike this is a really important one because you do want to be comfortable on your bike but when you are on the hunt for your new road bike it’s a good idea to test out a few this could mean going down to your local bike shop chatting to someone there and they might be kind enough to you know let you go down the road and have a spin on a few different bikes so you get an idea of what you like do you want a bike that you can go out and ride really long hours or potentially do you want to do some races in the future if that’s the case then you’re going to want to go for a bike that’s quite similar to this or bear Orca it has quite an aggressive geometry that meaning like a low front end but if you are someone who’s looking to do some more relaxed riding be more comfortable on the bike then you can go for a far more relaxed geometry which is going to be a lot easier on your body don’t pay too much attention to the size of the handlebars or what saddle it has on these are things that can be easily changed afterwards to fit you as a rider but you do want to pay attention to the size of the frame to get that wrong you’re pretty screwed just to warn you every single bike brand has a slightly different sizing so don’t just assume because you’re a 49 and a bear that you’re going to be a same in a different brand also some Brands work in centimeters and others work in extra small small medium or large just to make things even more confusing but on most manufacturers websites they’ll have a sizing chart you can go on put your measurements in and it will give you the ideal bite size for you in that brand [Music] next up you want to look for good components on the bike and what I mean by components is brakes wheels and gears if you are new to cycling then you might not figured out what type of pedals you want to use because let’s be honest there are loads to choose from but your new bike might come with pedals or it might not but I’m guessing if you are relatively new you’re going to start off with flat pedals and that’s absolutely fine but over time you might want to change to something like this clipless pedals they do take a while to get used to so just bear that in mind but the main thing for now is just getting on your bike and riding it right sandals now if your new bike comes with a saddle that you’re comfortable on then that is a big win but I’m going to say the majority of you your bike might come in the saddle you’re not fully comfortable with and that might mean you’re going to have to shop around for sandals and as you can see there are a lot of saddles to choose from but a lot of bike shops will let you try out a saddle before you fully commit to it but just to warn you it might take a little bit of shopping around before you find something that you’re comfortable on foreign bikes is a great option and my first road bike was a second-hand bike that I found locally but places to look when you’re looking for second-hand bikes I would say Facebook Marketplace eBay um your local bike shops and there are some bike shops that just do secondhand bikes isn’t there so where would you go I’m going to add in cycling clubs to that as well cycling clubs yeah so in terms of ease of searching for bikes you’ve got to go to the Internet you’ve got far wider reach and scope of what you can access eBay like you said great place to go on Facebook Marketplace as well generally Facebook Marketplace you’re going to get stuff which is a little bit closer to home maybe you’ve got not professional sellers you’ve got people just selling their own stuff so I think that’s probably a good place to go and you tend to have bikes at a slightly lower price point as well I’m searching around for that and in terms of there’s lots of other things you need to look at when you’re trying to buy a second-hand bike I do think second-hand stuff is a great option but there are lots of things you need to look out for so should we try about that yeah what do we need to look out for because I feel like for maybe like me are you looking for a second-hand bike we know what we’re looking for what’s good what’s bad that looks a bit dodgy has that frame being repaired but for someone that is totally new to cycling what would you say are some of the key aspects that you need to look out for so someone that’s new I think you’re really going to have to look at some basic checks of the bike you can’t be taking components apart and your knowledge is going to be fairly limited as well so things like checking the frame condition checking there’s no damage to the paint if it’s um yeah if it’s cracked all of these signs should be fairly visible so most of the checks are going to be making are visual ones even things down to like checking the tires are okay checking the wheels aren’t really buckled and even the case of just picking the bike up moving it around a little bit give it not necessarily like shake it to death but just move in the body stuff either doesn’t spin freely that’s meant to spin freely or if it’s made rattly you’ll see that bearings are loose the wheel’s got to be a play side to side and that’s probably the easiest indicator of checking stuff like that if it sounds funny doesn’t quite look right ask questions because there’s nothing wrong with asking questions but I think get a feeling of the person that you’re dealing with and ask as many questions as possible about the bike and you shouldn’t go too far wrong and you can get some really good deals when you’re looking at second hand but what about the component part of second hand is that an important thing to look out for yeah that’s a really good point actually so in terms of components obviously everything is going to be worn but you don’t really necessarily see where on a frame as being a bad point it might just have a few scuffs on the frame so there you have it those are some of my very own tips when it comes to buying your first road bike hopefully this video has answered all of your questions but if it hasn’t just leave them down in the comment section below and I’ll try my very best to answer them but if you are watching this and you are quite an experience like this and you have bought your fair share of bikes than if you have any of your own tips please leave them down in the comments section too but remember we have a whole series of beginner bike riding skills drills everything you need to know so make sure to tune in for the next episode