How To Give New Bike Advice

BikeSnob’s rant today on new bike advice got me thinking. I used to be an “automotive journalist” and so I get a lot of new car questions from friends and family. And as a former bike shop employee, I have always gotten a lot of new bike questions. My answers to these “what car (or bike) to buy?” questions have always been the same:

1. Decide what you want to spend.
2. Decide what you want to use the car (or bike) for.
3. Go buy the appropriate Toyota or Honda (or Trek or Specialized).

Now, in the case of bikes, there is the added question of fit, but I’m going to assume your local Trek or Specialized dealer will fit you to the right size bike, once you have it narrowed down to the right model. (Of course, in the rare case where you have odd body dimensions or a very big budget, you might do better with custom.)

Do I follow my own advice? No. I’ve never bought a Toyota or Honda. And I’ve never bought a Specialized. (I bought a Trek 950 in 1994, but only because the employee deals were too good to pass up, and I sold it at a profit a few months later.) Most of my personal bikes are weird mongrels ill-suited to anyone but me.

When it comes to cars, over the years I’ve mostly purchased old American junk, old Swedish junk, Italian cars and used mid-engine Porsches with potentially catastrophic IMS bearing issues that have hit the bottom of their depreciation curve. Would I recommend any of these cars to friends or relatives? Absolutely not.

However, if my friend or relative follows my generic advice above, there is a very good chance that they will be happy, and a very low chance that I will receive any kind of blowback. In the worst case scenario, the friend or relative ends up with a high quality car or a bike with half-decent resale value.

Now, the nice thing about bikes is even if they buy something other than a Trek or Specialized they will probably still be fine, assuming they spend more than about $400 at the LBS (strangely, this $400 LBS threshold has held firm for decades). This is very unlike cars, where if you don’t buy a Toyota or Honda, you can end up with blown head gaskets, recalled batteries or worse.

The closest I have come to following my own advice was when I bought a new modern full suspension 29er two years ago. I hadn’t really kept up with the evolution of these bikes and was not up to speed on a lot of the new tech. My own personal feelings/biases/vibes prevents me from shopping Treks or Specializeds, but to keep it simple, I decided to limit myself to two very established players in this category: Ibis and Santa Cruz (and I've owned a few of each over the years). I decided what I wanted to spend ($5,000, which would get me the top notch frames with half-decent parts I could upgrade later) and what I wanted to use the bike for (riding in the PNW woods with lots of nasty roots, but nothing too crazy). This allowed me to quickly narrow it down to the Ibis Ripley and the Santa Cruz Tallboy. After watching several YouTube comparisons between the two, I ascertained that the Ripley was a tad better going up hill and the Tallboy was a tad better going down hill. The sizing/geometry was nearly identical: in both cases, I would ride a size Large. Normally at that point I would have just gone with the one that I could find cheaper. But this was during Covid, so I went with the first one I could get my hands on, which turned out to be the Ripley. And it’s worked out just great.



Now, how about used bike advice? That’s a whole other topic! And a lot more complicated! But a good place to start is BikeList Price Drops!