As I mentioned in my post about switching from Greenie to Snowflake, when I was shopping for a bike, I wanted everything to be perfect. I had a long list of criteria to meet:
- It had to have a step-through (women's) frame, since I do a lot of riding in skirts
- It had to have fat, durable tires, since I'd seen other people's road bike tires go flat over practically nothing too many times
- It needed to be able to accommodate my front basket, rear rack, and fenders
- It could not be a "cruiser" —they are for people who want to ride slow, and I have places to go!
- It had to be lightweight—my old bike is a monstrous clunker, and I've had enough of wrestling that around Metro to be ready for a change.
- It must not have a front suspension, which just adds weight and yet another moving part to keep maintained.
The preceding criteria were basically must-haves. I would be
very reluctant to compromise on any of them, but there were a few other things
I wanted that were really just strong preferences.
- I wanted lever shifters instead of twist shifters, because I'd used another bike once where I was constantly changing the gears by accident, just by leaning too hard on the handlebar.
- I preferred V-brakes over disc brakes since I understand how to maintain them.
- I wanted a fun color. Though I was willing to consider dark and boring colored bikes, I always felt reluctant to make a purchase, because they didn't spark joy!
- I preferred fewer gears. My last bike had a lot of problems with shifting, and I basically only ever used 3 out of my 21 gears anyway, so anything more seemed like overkill.
Turns out, a lot of these criteria are mutually exclusive.
Try finding a bike with fat tires but without a front suspension. They are few
and far between. Try finding a speed-oriented bike that also carries less than
21 gears. I still haven't!
As I shopped (over a period of years), eventually, I had to
give up on some of my less-important criteria to make room for the most
important ones, which I distilled down to light, fast(ish), and durable enough
for jumping curbs and surviving stretches of loose gravel in my commute.
I stopped worrying (as much) about getting fat tires and
started looking at hybrids with "32c" tires, which are narrower than
my old ones but not so crazy skinny that they'll go flat hitting a bump on the
pavement (as happened to my ex-boyfriend once!). I considered frames with a
horizontal top tube (and started brainstorming ways to still be able to ride in
a skirt). I conceded that maybe a front basket wasn't the best method of transporting
stuff, and started looking at bikes with less clearance between the handlebars
and front tire.
This was also when I added the price limit I mentioned in my last post: Although at first, I'd been mostly looking
at fairly costly bikes from REI, this round of shopping, I decided that my new
bike had to cost under 400 dollars. Those who know my shopping habits might be
shocked that I'd even consider a bike in that price range when you can get a
bike for less than 200. But those who haven't been shopping for bikes for the
past few years might be excused for not knowing that every bike in the low
price range gets terrible reviews. Apparently they go out of tune very rapidly
(if they can ever be properly tuned in the first place), and after having spent
the last 3 years on an out-of-tune bike, I wanted something that I could keep
in good working order with minimal effort. It seems to be true that in the bike
market, more expensive bikes have better components, meaning less finicky
maintenance. The 430-500 dollar range seemed to be about the MSRP of a decent
bike with some measure of reliability, and of course, after I started finding
those models in end-of-season sales for 300-400, I decided that was the range
for me. Not so cheap that it would fall apart right away, but not so expensive
that I would regret it forever if I hated something about it.
And no matter what bike I picked, there was a
good chance I would hate something about it. Since none of the bikes I found
met all my criteria, I was considering the purchase to be
essentially an experiment. I would find out what I liked about the new bike and
what I didn't, and then after a suitable amount of time, if I didn't like
everything, I would trade up to a more expensive (better made) bike that ticked
exactly the right boxes.
So after years of deliberation, and several months of
this-time-it's-for-real hardcore shopping, in the end, I decided on Snowflake.
Snowflake was a pretty good compromise at $295.74. Way
cheaper than I ever expected, it also was better than a lot of the bikes I had
considered in a number of ways. It did have the women's frame and it
had some of the widest tires (at 36c) I've found, barring a mountain bike (and
it turns out I rather like these tires. They have a bigger rolling diameter
than my old tires, making it easier to move fast—one of the most important
criteria in my daily commute).
True, I had to take the twist shifters (which I still
dislike) and the white color (which is better than black or grey, but still
less preferable than any other color I can think of), and the excessive number
of gears (which have proven to be my least favorite thing about this bike—more
on that later) but I feel like I spent a little money to learn a lot, while
simultaneously getting a bike that's a solid improvement over the last
one.
Committing to purchase something is one of the scariest
things I ever have to do (just under making phone calls), so I'm relieved that
this purchase went off without a hitch (that is, unless you count the failed
purchase from Amazon). Now that it's over, I can focus on riding. Guess what
I'll be blogging about next!
0 comments: