Totally new to biking.

I would imagine that your balancing skills are pretty good, so learning a bike should be a fairly quick process, but still I would not rush into buying anything just yet.

Check with you local bike shops and see if any of them will rent you bike to learn on. Tell them you're wanting to get into cycling and they may rent something a little nicer hoping to get your business when the time comes.

If no one in your are rents bikes, be honest with the shop and tell them you just want something cheap to learn on and hopefully that they will take back in trade when you decide to buy a good road bike.

If you have a choice of shops to deal with, visit as many as you can. You will soon determine the ones that will be easiest to get along with.

gruppo said:

I would imagine that your balancing skills are pretty good, so learning a bike should be a fairly quick process, but still I would not rush into buying anything just yet.

Check with you local bike shops and see if any of them will rent you bike to learn on. Tell them you're wanting to get into cycling and they may rent something a little nicer hoping to get your business when the time comes.

If no one in your are rents bikes, be honest with the shop and tell them you just want something cheap to learn on and hopefully that they will take back in trade when you decide to buy a good road bike.

If you have a choice of shops to deal with, visit as many as you can. You will soon determine the ones that will be easiest to get along with.

Thanks for the reply Gruppo 😄

I've got tons of bike shops around my area (SF, CA). I'll try making a couple of rounds and visit the shops as you had advised. I'm hoping a few have some sort of rental program. Thanks again

-Albert

Shredpirate said:

Thanks for the reply Gruppo 😄

I've got tons of bike shops around my area (SF, CA). I'll try making a couple of rounds and visit the shops as you had advised. I'm hoping a few have some sort of rental program. Thanks again

-Albert

Glad to help, just one more thought.

Since you have a lot of shops to choose from, you may find some that target a specific market, such as racing, high end bikes, etc. Don't be put off if such places just don't cater to your needs. Just keep looking. There are plenty of good friendly bike shops out there.

Good luck, and don't forget to have fun!

I don't know if you can get them in your area, but Louis Garneau (sp?) makes a few REALLY cheap road bikes. IE under 500 canadian dollars for a starter roadie. Sure, it has downtube shifters but unless you are jumping into pack racing than you don't *need* STI's to learn off of. The advantage to this bike is that it's cheap, it's a roadie, and it's brand new 🙂