- I love bikes.
I own five bikes,
six if you count my original mountain bike,
I don't know how much of this you're going to want to use.
Oh Jesus, (beep)
I'm Val and I am here to help you
choose the best bike for you.
I feel like I'm going to say this so many times,
but you can do anything with anything.
More and more and more,
you get a lot of bikes that can cross over
and work in more than one area.
So the first step in choosing a bike is choosing your lane.
By that, what I mean is
that first lane is going to be mostly road,
paved, smooth surfaces,
which will lend itself to certain types of bikes
more easily.
The second lane is going to be more of that mixed surface,
that off-camber kind of vibe,
where you may not know quite
what you're going to get in a ride.
It could be a little bit of this,
could be a little bit of that.
Yeah, Chicago.
And then the third lane is really a pretty specific gravel.
Looser, could be single track or double track, Jeep roads,
but definitely like a rougher surface
where you're going to want a bike
that has the ability to kind of transition
between different surfaces.
- [Offscreen] Nice.
- Nice.
In the category of smooth surface slash road oriented bikes,
you can expect to find any of these subcategories:
road bikes,
touring bikes,
cargo bikes,
cruisers,
and the ever versatile hybrid.
This is a gateway drug to needing
many different bikes with many different specific,
specific requirements.
So in smooth services, what are we looking for in a bike?
If you're that person who's going to be riding on road
or on designated paved bike paths,
first and foremost, we're looking for a geometry
that sets us up to possibly
ride a little bit longer, further distances.
We're also looking for wheels that turn over quickly
and for tires that are typically a little bit smoother
and tread in a little bit narrower,
which also translates to that feeling of rolling quickly
and efficiently and not feeling like you have a lot
between you and the road per se.
At this end, we are looking at kind of
a traditional road bike set up here
with its own specific geometry, with drop bars,
for climbing and descending and for that bigger wheel
and that narrower tire,
so that it rolls really, really quickly.
More and more and more honestly,
road bikes are designed more for comfort
than they ever have been.
Very, very much much in the same genre,
but still also road worthy is a hybrid bike.
The classic hybrid.
In this case, you can see right off the bat,
we've got a totally different setup
in terms of the handlebars,
where your hands are going to be placed on these handlebars,
that geometry is going to be a little bit more relaxed.
The wheels typically the same size,
and then those tires are going to be just a little bit wider
and also probably have a little bit of tread to them
so they can handle a variety of road surfaces
and conditions.
Both roadworthy, but you can see at the face of it,
how very different they look.
And then you can take that conversation and continue it down
into a hybrid with a little bit of suspension.
You can take that conversation
and translate it into a cruiser bike, where same thing,
it's going to be a bigger wheel and a slightly wider tire
where it's going to roll smoothly,
but it's going to roll a little more comfortably.
Every single one of these bikes
falls well within the road spectrum.
So it's choose where you want to be in the lane
in the road spectrum. What did I miss?
- [Producer] We didn't talk about Touring.
- (beep) When you think about a Touring bike,
think about a road bike that is built
to be a burly pack mule.
The geometry with a taller,
typically a much taller, head tube, braze-ons.
So more points of connectivity for cages
and panniers and racks.
Also consider that when you look at the frame of the bike,
typically a Touring bike is going
to be more traditionally steel,
which allows it to flex a little bit better for you,
but be very, very resilient and be very pack oriented
so you can really load that bike down for longer trips.
There are also cargo bikes.
More and more people are using cargo bikes
to haul their kiddos, haul their dogs, haul their groceries.
So typically the wheel base on those guys
is going to be a little bit longer in the back.
And they'll have a lot of different capabilities
of customizing that bike
in order to haul the types of things
that they want and need.
It will be set up to be more comfortable
for those shorter to medium length trips.
I would also put in that category,
the cruiser bike, the ever popular beach cruiser,
or because we don't have beaches in my town, brunch cruiser,
where you are just looking for something
that is very upright, very comfortable,
very short distances,
super easy to get on.
If you're that kind of person who just wants
to jump on a bike and head down the street
a couple blocks to meet a friend for coffee,
nothing frilly about that bike, but just like fun and easy.
- [Producer] Do we want to talk about folding bikes?
- Folding bikes, they exist.
Think about how people live in our world today
with less space, no yards, no garages.
And so for those folks,
a folding bike actually makes a lot of sense.
Do they ride the same way?
They definitely don't, right.
They're smaller wheels.
Typically you're a lot further away handling wise
from your wheels than you would be
on any of these other bikes.
For that shorter, more commuter distanced oriented person,
a folding bike can make just as much sense as a hybrid
while taking up half the space.
Mixed surfaces can be a pretty wide
gray area to travel in.
So a lot of these bikes will actually look
like they fit into other categories
and here's the tricky part.
They can actually fit into other categories.
So what makes this different or this hybrid different
in a mixed surfaces area
than it does, say, in a road or in non road environment?
The first is, again, a lot of this geometry
is meant to be the same
because you can ride these bikes
for some great length of time or some great distance
and do so comfortably based on the geometry
of the bikes, whether it's a Touring bike,
a traditional Gravel bike or a hybrid.
So another thing you're going to see is you're going to see
typically again, that, that bigger wheel,
that rolls more quickly.
Usually it's a 700 C wheel,
but sometimes it's a 650 wheel as well
if you're looking for something
a little more comfort driven,
and those tires are going to
be again a little bit wider
and they may have a little bit more tread to them,
but not so much tread that you can't roll pretty smoothly
and pretty quickly for long distances.
So again, these bikes can be for anything
from a couple of miles to several hundred miles,
and they're capable of doing all of those things,
but probably just with a little bit more overall comfort
than you would find in a traditional road environment.
So many things to love about hybrids
in the category of mixed surfaces.
One of the things I love about hybrids
is that they can be more upright and more relaxed,
or they can be a little bit less relaxed
and more aggressive.
But overall, this entire genre is really meant
to do all the things that you want to do
on-road or off-road with relative ease
and with relative lack of discomfort, doing that.
So this particular hybrid happens
to be what we call a rigid frame bike.
And that just means that the fork is rigid in this scenario.
Hybrids do also come in light suspension.
And that just means what we would have up here
would be a fork with what we call stanchions.
And there would be some level of compressability
in that front end,
so that when you hit something,
that you actually get a little bit of rebound back
and not just reverberation through your hands.
They do all also have that wider handlebar.
You have some ability to kind of control and stabilize
that bike in a number of different scenarios.
So if you're a little bit off-road
and you need a little bit more control,
those wider handlebars will give you that.
Pretty healthy gearing ratio
so that you get a lot of ability
to go up and down in gears.
So, and they're just a fun, easy bike
for like lots and lots of purposes.
There's really a lot to like about it.
Off-road bikes will do one thing well,
and that is deal with uncertain and hard to navigate
and crunchy and rocky and rooty terrain.
They might all just do it slightly differently.
And the terrain itself being a little bit different
will also help you decide where you want to land
with what type of bike you buy.
If this is the type of territory
you want to cover as a cyclist.
So at the top end of that range,
I would put the gravel bike.
And again, those gravel bikes are meant to be,
you could take them out on long gravel roads.
I've even seen them on some
more mountain bike specific trails.
It's just a matter of, you know,
what your appetite is for tackling terrain.
Typically the gravel bike will cover
more of that longer road style scenario,
but with just rougher ground to cover.
Then we have bikepacking,
quite simply it's backpacking on a bike.
So instead of you carrying the load,
the bike carries the load and the bike can carry the load
in a number of different ways.
It can be done on a gravel bike.
If, again, if the terrain calls more for a gravel bike,
then that would be how you would bike pack.
If the bike packing trip you've chosen
is more a traditional mountain biking trail,
maybe some single track,
meaning a narrow lane or some double tracker Jeep roads,
you might prefer to even do it
on a Hardtail mountain bike, for example.
Then from there we go into mountain bikes themselves.
So Hardtail mountain bike, meaning you've got a fork here,
a rigid frame in the back.
So your suspensions in the front,
but you're, you're dealing with the backend yourself.
And then we've got full suspension,
which is going to give you a rear shock and a front fork,
or as people like to call it full squish.
Some common features in all bikes
that are meant to be totally off-road
are first and foremost,
you are going to find that the wheel sets
are typically wider and a little bit burlier,
whether that's a gravel bike or a bikepacking bike,
or in this case, mountain bikes,
the wheels need to be able to support
and have some buoyancy to them
so that you can get over some of that rougher terrain.
The tires themselves also tend to be wider
and have more traction, more tread,
different tread patterns,
which you can geek out on for days and days if you like,
but suffice to say tire width and tread pattern
actually help you navigate
through lots of uncertain scenarios.
The other thing you'll see here
is super relaxed geometry for the most part.
So this allows you to be kind of upright
and seeing what's in front of you,
surveying what's going to be happening
in the next seven to 20 feet,
especially in the case of these mountain bikes,
we start to see pretty wide bars.
And again, those wide bars help with stability
while you're navigating very uncertain terrain.
So we want to keep you nimble but stable at the same time.
And that's what you can expect to see
when you go into this genre of bike.
Now that we have figured out what type of bike
might be best for you.
No, we haven't figured that out.
I'm sure I missed something,
but I'm pretending like I didn't.
So when choosing your bike,
the first thing you want to consider again
is which lane do you want to be in?
Do you want to be in that road or paved surface?
Do you want to be in that extreme off-road
dirt gravel surface,
or is that mixed surfaces where you might be,
gravel rocks, dirt paved or all of the above,
is that more your scene?
Well, the good news is in addition to all of those genres,
every single one of those options
also includes an e-bike option.
In addition to that,
once you figure out what that bike starts to look like
and feel like,
you'll have lots of other choices to make, I promise.
Those choices will include things
like frame material, and they will include
things like components.
So what do we want in a drive train?
What type of brakes do you want?
What type of wheels are we looking for?
What type of tires are you looking for?
That will all come naturally
once you figure out which bike you're looking for.
There's so much, how does anybody ever choose? Geez.
And you're like, yeah, Val, guess why you're here.
I can't say this enough.
All bikes will do all things typically,
but how we choose which bike depends on
which of those types of scenarios
you think you might fall into,
check out our other videos to help you narrow
that search even further
to help you find the perfect bike for you.
Val says goodbye for now. See you next time.
Stay tuned for more of me. (laughs)