Choosing a Road Bike

Be prepared for overwhelming choices, new vocabulary and a budget in mind. The cycling industry has got it's pricing strategies worked out for over a century. Expect a model or option for every additional 100 dollars or so and the sky seems to be the limit with tailoring, 'feather light' and 'luxury' brand options.

How to start ?

1) Decide on your budget range for the bike itself (see post 'note for beginners' for a shopping list of necessary accessories ).

2) Read up on variants from brands websites. Typical categories to choose from are Entry Level, Endurance or Racing. A frame geometry and material will typically be common within a category. There's also a few specialized categories for time trial, cyclocross or indoor versions. Models are also gender specific. Choose your category, that'll already narrow down a bit but still leave you with overwhelming choices.


How about performances ?

How bike fit and what type of gear you have will be the main parameter in terms of performance.

1) You're 'bike fit' if you've already trained a significant base distance and have developed the endurance to be able to ride anywhere between 60 to 120 km, two and three times weekly at averages speed above 30 kmh without cramping or other recovery problems. As you develop this fitness level, you'll also experiance with fitting tweaks. All road bikes can be tweaked for comfort or performance. Comfort comes first. If you try an aggressive position without the right body flexibility and endurance, you'll be less efficient and hurt your back, joints, muscle and won't enjoy or be motivated to develop the necessary endurance. Base training to reach competitive levels takes times (a few years). Meanwhile comfort is really the main consideration and the most important factor is to the right road bike size (get more than one advise on this).

2) At any fitness level, what type of gear you're pushing will determine how hard you workout and what type of comfort and performance you'll be able to maintain. Road bikes have lots of gear to help the rider maintaining a constant effort and a manageable cadence. Initially, fitting a bike with a cadence meter will help you develop a certain consitance with gears. Where you ride and what kind of hills you've got needs to be considered when choosing your gear types. Standard double chainrings and casettes will give you a lot of gear choices but if you're in a area will lots of hills, you'll need to consider a compact or triple cranksets for additional ranges.

3) Weight
Your effort on the bike is determined by your weight + the bike weight. The work on a bike is to maintain a desired cadence/speed on flat or hills. The effort on flat will be determined by the wind and rolling resistance. The wind resistance increases exponentialy with speed. Efforts on hills will be mainly determined by the total weight. If you're between 75-85 kg and your bike and accessories weight 10 kg, a lighter bike will give a 3-5 % weight advantage. This will make a difference in racing for race fit riders. But for non-competitive riders, it could be argued that it's really paying a lot more for working out a little less. Or that you'll train more and loose more weight spinning on a relatively heavier gear.

4) Aerodynamics
Wind resitance is your enemy number when reaching competitive speed. For a given effort, the less resistance the faster you'll go. The number one impact to wind resistance is you own body and position on the bike. Cycling jersey are tight to reduce drag and your flexibility will determine how much of an horizontal profile you can manage while spinning. On a road bike, wheels become a main consideration in terms of reducing wind and rolling resistance. The more spokes you've on your wheels the more they drag. Fewer spokes and larger rim reduce how much wheels drag but they'll also become more fragile and more expensive. Some wheels are more expensive that complete bikes, good wheels will improve significantly riding quality.


Will your motivation stick ?

It's all in the head ... If you're motivated you'll enjoy and stick to your goals, you will get fit and improve fast. It's important to choose a bike that will keep you motivated. What ever works for your budget. There no need to worry about future upgrade from day 1 when choosing a road bike. All bikes have upgrade path and there's always a better component that'll come up. The industry is working hard on seasonal innovation and incremental improvement. You can be certain that after a couple of years, no matter you much you decide to pay there'll always be something that'll be able to motivate you even more. Make sure you've considered comfort as a priority no matter your objective. Get a bike that'll be able to meet your goals, and make your goals achievable in the short to medium term that'll keep you motivated to set other incremental goal in the various aspect of cycling fitness such as endurence, flexibility, power, cadence, riding skills, ...