Are cheap bikes harder to ride

[Shropshire65LW]

I’ve just gone from. Giant Anyroad to a £100 neglected hybrid .......it’s much nice to ride tho I am building to my spec gearing and components. Very Happy .
my bike is for pleasure and a bit of fitness , no rush to get anywhere nice easy gearIng Good components provided nice gear changes the only issue I have is a sore bum some days
I guess the time will come for a electric one, I see the advantage of travelling more miles in a day
seeing more places when and feeling a little more relaxed maybe .im guessing .
ibe no real experience with bikes only about 100 yards .it was nice to ride
and intrigued me to what 30/50 Miles would feel like guess one day I’ll find out

 

[Blue Hills]

and intrigued me to what 30/50 Miles would feel like guess one day I’ll find out

keep pedalling under your own steam (as long as no health issues), gradually building up, and you will be there in no time.
The first bike I bought was in central london - i lived at the time maybe 12 miles out - the folk in the shop suggested i ride it home - at the time I thought them somewhat bonkers.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I am no weight weenie, carry lots of stuff that I may need on a ride, but there is surely nothing more like dead useless weight than a dead battery.

The issue of how much energy you can cram into a given weight of battery or fuel tank is ultimately why electric cars are struggling to become a mass market product for long distance journeys. The amount of weight added by all the e-hardware on a bike is disproportionate to any benefit it gives, IMHO. Other than for short distance urban delivery duties, where you can have the bike equivalent of an electric milkfloat, I see regular e-bikes mainly as something marketed to people who don't really like the idea of cycling involving much physical effort.

 

[Nomadski]

Some people find ebikes really hard to stay upright on, right @themosquitoking ?

 

[Mike Ayling]

The issue of how much energy you can cram into a given weight of battery or fuel tank is ultimately why electric cars are struggling to become a mass market product for long distance journeys. The amount of weight added by all the e-hardware on a bike is disproportionate to any benefit it gives, IMHO. Other than for short distance urban delivery duties, where you can have the bike equivalent of an electric milkfloat, I see regular e-bikes mainly as something marketed to people who don't really like the idea of cycling involving much physical effort.

See my sig

Mike

 

[Lovacott]

I saw a couple pushing there bikes up a hill yesterday I don’t want to be that person I know my ebike can do it but would i manage on a decent manual bike.

I have three very big and long hills on my work commute. When I started riding again (five months ago), I couldn't do any of them all the way up.

So I decided that each day, I would push myself as hard as I could and see how far I could get.

After two weeks, I could do all of the hills in the granny gears but be exhausted, another two weeks and I was doing them a bit quicker and only feeling slightly puffed.

Five months in and my legs have turned into tree trunks.

It's amazing what riding a bike does for your body and fitness.

 

[Lovacott]

The difference is probably smaller than you think. The biggest weight of a bicycle is it's rider. The ability to climb hills is a lot to do with the rider although good gearing helps. I wouldn't get too caught up on weights unless you're planning on racing.

The more I see written about bike weight, the less important it seems to be.

Because I do a cross country commute, I have to take a fair bit of gear with me. My work clothes, lunch, mobile, towel, spare parts and tools. I add on another kilo when I fill my 1 litre water bottle.

I then pop on my 14 1/2 stone body.

So I'm not about to spend £200 reducing the weight of my bike by 500 grams by installing a lighter weight groupset.

I 100% get it if you are a racing competitor (fine margins and all that).

But for us commuters?

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

The more I see written about bike weight, the less important it seems to be.

Because I do a cross country commute, I have to take a fair bit of gear with me. My work clothes, lunch, mobile, towel, spare parts and tools. I add on another kilo when I fill my 1 litre water bottle.

I then pop on my 14 1/2 stone body.

So I'm not about to spend £200 reducing the weight of my bike by 500 grams by installing a lighter weight groupset.

I 100% get it if you are a racing competitor (fine margins and all that).

But for us commuters?

Bike weight does matter - up to a certain point. But the sort of weight-reduction obsession suffered by many cyclists is just silly, when you factor in how many pounds they have to spend to save a few hundred grams. It's not normally mere hundreds of pounds either, often thousands
In extremis, say you decided to build a bike from bits of scaffold tube welded together. The thing would certainly be strong, but it would weigh so much that it would completely ruin the enjoyment of cycling.
If you then got on an old-school rod-braked 3-speed after riding the scaffold bike, you would think you were on a racer. So, in cycling, everything is relative to the alternatives, and also relative to the strength and size of the rider.
I weigh 200 lbs take, and I have a 3-speed Raleigh in my fleet that weighs 40 lbs, so the bike is 20% of my body weight. If I was a skinny 140 lb runner/fitness type, I would probably find riding a 40 lb bike hard going, as it would total almost 40% of my body weight.
So, for the larger rider, so long as your weight is not just fat, the weight of the bike is less of a factor than it is for someone who is smaller and lighter.
It's well worth owning a reasonably light bike for fair weather leisure use, say something in the mid-high 20's of pounds range. I have a Reynolds steel job that weighs 26 lbs without tools and water, and it's great for riding just for fun. From a 40 lb bike down to 26 lbs is a big difference, and massively less effort on hills. My lightest bike is about 24 lbs, and the difference between that and the 26 lb one is barely worth talking about. So big, easy, and cheap weight savings can be worth having, but the incrementally small very expensive ones are way over-hyped IMHO.

 

[confusedcyclist]

In this industrialised world, where machines do nearly all our heavy labour, why are some people so afraid of putting in any extra effort? Inactivity is a disease! Some hardly get enough exercise as it is. Well said @SkipdiverJohn, couldn't have put it better myself. Do things that are difficult, if only for the health benefits and sense of achievement. This is not coming from a place of macho pride, it's just living and respecting what you already have.

 

[Lovacott]

In this industrialised world, where machines do nearly all our heavy labour, why are some people so afraid of putting in any extra effort? Inactivity is a disease! Do things that are difficult, if only for the health benefits and sense of achievement.

I can't exercise just for the sake of it. I can't be bothered with doing press ups or lifting weights.

But riding a bike is something I can incorporate into my daily routine by using it for commuting. The exercise has a purpose which is to get me from A to B.

 

[Blue Hills]

In this industrialised world, where machines do nearly all our heavy labour, why are some people so afraid of putting in any extra effort?

I think with SOME it's because they like showing off their machines.

 

[confusedcyclist]

I can't exercise just for the sake of it. I can't be bothered with doing press ups or lifting weights.

But riding a bike is something I can incorporate into my daily routine by using it for commuting. The exercise has a purpose which is to get me from A to B.

Not an uncommon attitude, it's also why most people who don't get ANY exercise quit going to the gym after 2 weeks. We are hardwired to prefer the lazy approach (up to a point) as in a survival situation, any wasted calories could be the difference between life and death.

I find sticking with an exercise routine that is non-functional requires gargantuan volumes of motivation which I cannot sustain for more than a few months at a time. If only we could make the roads feel safer and ammodate more novices, we'd be much better off as a nation, through NHS savings alone, not to mention resources wasted on more roads, fuel, pollution, road deaths etc.

 

[Reynard]

Going to a gym or to exercise classes is so not me.

I do miss being a member of a fencing club as like cycling, it's a sport I enjoy, but alas there is no longer a club nearby.

These days I get most of my exercise through cycling (whether for pleasure or just being out and about doing stuff), walking (I'm too tight to cough up for bus fares!) and keeping my solid fuel heating fed with logs. Hefting loppers, chain saw or log maul for an hour or two on a regular basis doesn't half give one a full body workout.

 

[Blue Hills]

walking (I'm too tight to cough up for bus fares!)

You are in luck - such is the government's dedication to improving public health that outside london, particularly in the north, they have been scrapping rural bus services for years.

 

[Reynard]

You are in luck - such is the government's dedication to improving public health that outside london, particularly in the north, they have been scrapping rural bus services for years.

Bus services out here in the boonies are pretty sketchy - it's five miles to a bus stop that's going to get me anywhere useful. But when I'm in an urban area e.g. Cambridge, London etc, I'll walk out of preference. Quite often it's quicker anyway.