Is An Entry Level Mountain Bike Right For You?

After looking at the article in the newspaper and looking at cost, I thought I would get an entry level mountain bike.  With more research I come to realize that what I would get at Wal-mart now wouldn’t be as rugged as the USA made Murray that I owed back in the early to mid 90s.  The general feedback is that the department store mountain bikes will last a few months, but that is about it.  I know what you are thinking.  If I pay $100 to $200 for a department store bike, I can just repair it as needed.  The problem is that these bikes don’t accept standard parts that are available at a bike shop.  Therefore, department store mountain bikes are essentially a throw away bike.  If you want a good quality bicycle, you will have to pay for it.  Unfortunately it will probably be made in China or some other Asian country, but the components are what really make the difference.

This realization led to start researching bikes and looking for local bike shops.  I soon found that one of the best entry level mountain bikes was the Specialized Hardrock.  I went to a local dealer, actually it is about 35 miles away, and looked at it.  This was a few months ago, and I was advised of their procedures and services that they offer.  I really liked the shop and they may still be my favorite as far as how they treat you when you go in.   I also went to a Trek dealer and looked at the 3700 and I also went to another shop and looked at a Fuji Nevada 5.0.  These entry level mountain bikes all range from $359 to $420.  All I had to do was save up enough money.  However, now I am glad that I didn’t have the money then.

That’s right I had my entry level mountain bike all picked out.  I had actually chosen the Specialized Hardrock as the bike I would get.  However, I really wanted a road bike for some reason.  Even when I went and looked at the mountain bikes, I knew in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t be riding off road much, if ever.  I would have to travel about 20-30 miles to the two largest areas to ride.  While looking at the shops I was also showed hybrid bikes.  However, I thought I could ride the mountain bike and just put some street tires on it when the factory tires wore out.

After more time looking around and wanting to actually own a road bike since I was going to be riding around the streets of my neighborhood mostly, I realized that an entry level mountain bike might not be the best choice for me.  This is something that you really need to ask yourself also when you start searching for a bike.  I had really dismissed the hybrid as something that doesn’t do anything good, but after further research I realized it is a good alternative to an expensive road bike or a mountain bike that only sees asphalt.  Another plus is for people who can’t bend over as much as a road bike would require riding in the drops.  At this point I decided an entry level mountain bike was out and I needed to concentrate on a hybrid or a road bike, which I will focus my next article on.

What Cycling Fitness Is About

I want to welcome my readers to Cycling Fitness.  This will be a blog about, well, cycling fitness or getting fit by riding a bicycle.  I have given a brief description about what I intend to write about at the top of the page, but I'm going to expand on it a little more.  I hope that you will enjoy reading this and continue to come back for updates.

Where I See the Blog Going

My intentions are to keep you updated on my progress of getting fit by logging miles on a bicycle.  This is a bicycle which I have not bought yet.  Therefore, you will get to go through the process, with me, of searching a choosing the right bike for my needs.  Hopefully this will be helpful to many of you who are going through the same process or may in the future.  I am on a tight budget as many of us are in the current economic situation therefore, you will be able to see that you don't need a $10,000 bicycle to go cycling.  I also plan to give basic reviews of bikes and their features.  I would like to also eventually go over other fitness areas other than just cycling because the upper body isn't exercised when cycling.  Nutrition also plays a role in cycling for fitness, therefore I will try to share diet tips and nutritional supplement information along the way too.

How This All Got Started

Well obviously I'm not where I want to be in terms of fitness.  My body mass index (BMI) has recently gotten high enough that I'm now medically considered to be overweight.  I feel worse from day to day than I have ever felt in my life.  I was athletic in high school and haven't really exercised at all in the past 12 years.  I started thinking back toward spring that I needed to do something.  I thought about walking and happened to catch an article in the local newspaper about a place that has hiking trails.  Guess what else they have, mountain bike trails.  At that point I started thinking about how good my fitness was at about age 14 when I used my mountain bike every day.  This led me to research other trails in the area and bikes which I plan to elaborate on in the next article.

What You Can Expect

I'm going to take you through the process I went through in researching bikes, where to find them, and which bike is right for you and your budget.  I also want to keep a log on the amount of miles that I ride and how much weight I lose along the way.  I hope this provides invaluable information for you and inspires you to get healthy whether it is through cycling fitness or another means of your choice.