Hi all. I'm looking into buying a bike. I've never bought a decent bike so I'm a bit clueless as to what to look for. I would love a road bike but I don't want to be limited to only riding on road and I don't have enough money to get 2 bikes, so that will have to wait until later in life! So that leaves mountain bikes, but I will be doing a fair amount of road riding as well so I was thinking of looking at hybrid bikes. Thing is I don't know much about bikes! First off, how 'robust' are hybrids? I wont be jumping down mountains or anything hardcore but I would like to use it off road and not have to worry about breaking it! My budget is not great, perhaps £300-400 but the less spent the better. Anything I should look for/avoid? Particular brands etc? One last question, where would you suggest buying from? There are no decent bike shops near me so I will almost definitely be buying online. Thanks very much for any help.
A hybrid will be quite a lot slower than a normal road bike, and poor traction compared to a mountain bike, unless your not wanting to do either that well i'd say specialise. I recently bought my first road bike, for a measly £150, it's not all that bad and a large improvement over a "normal" bike. I think in hindsight i would have got a second hand bike. Possibly try a cycling forum?
Just get a mountain bike and put some fast rolling tyres on, Specialized Fast Trak for example. http://www.evanscycles.com/products/trek/4300-2008-mountain-bike-ec001560 http://www.evanscycles.com/products/specialized/hardrock-disc-2010-mountain-bike-ec019400 <---- your best option
I like the look of that specialised bike Reality|Bites, but wont changing the tyres be quite a lot of hassle? How much difference would there be with a mountain bike with 'slick' tyres compared to a standard road bike? If there's not too much difference I'd maybe go for this idea but I'd have thought there's be quite a difference, gear setups, weight etc. A second hand bike might be an idea. I could perhaps get a feel for a road bike. Although my mate has a good one so maybe I should just ask to try his.
A MTBer will tell you that there isn't much difference between them, but a Roadie will tell you that they are light years apart. I'm in the second camp.
