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If you are considering a cruiser - see if you can borrow one before you buy. My neighbor offered to lend me her cruiser which she rarely used because of its weight. After using it for two days I decided it was just too darn heavy. There was just no way I had the upper body strength to be lifting it on and off a bike rack attached to either my car or the bus. Most of the places safe to ride like the state park and bike trails in the area required transportation to get to a safe place to ride.
So, the weight of the bike can be a deal breaker if you don't have a lot of upper body strength.
Cruisers are heavy. I'm officially a senior and so is my wife but we ride a modern Trek tandem. It's closest equivalent in a single women's bike would be an FX2. Specialized and Giant also have very similar models. This is the minimum bike to have if you actually want to enjoy riding. If the ~$300+ to ~$400+ retail is too much money, try to find them used. A new bike that is much under $300 will be heavy, slow, things will break, and it will quickly become an unused waste of money.
Shopping for a bike to replace my 20 year old Trek mountain bike. Those days are so behind me. Looking online at the cruisers and the comfort bikes with easy pass through bars. What brand of bike do you ladies ride? (Trek is out of my price range). I am going to head to Dicks Sporting Goods later on this week. They seem to stock affordably priced bikes with good reviews. Discuss.....
Mar
I would recommend buying a used higher-end bike instead.
Cruisers are heavy. I'm officially a senior and so is my wife but we ride a modern Trek tandem. It's closest equivalent in a single women's bike would be an FX2. Specialized and Giant also have very similar models. This is the minimum bike to have if you actually want to enjoy riding. If the ~$300+ to ~$400+ retail is too much money, try to find them used. A new bike that is much under $300 will be heavy, slow, things will break, and it will quickly become an unused waste of money.
Yeah, something like the Trek FX series of bikes is what I'd recommend as well. They have the Stagger which has a very low top bar. Giant closest thing would probably be the Cypress which is more similar to the Specialized Roll bikes (super upright, low seat height). Specialized probably has the best range of bikes. You can get the Roll with very wide tires if you want more stability on gravel trails and a very upright position with or without step-through design, Alibi for a more stretched frame geometry, Ariel, Vita, and Sirius progressively more aggressive less upright position.
A lot of it depends what brands your local bike shops tend to carry but they're pretty comparable between brands. There's still going to be overlap at something like Dicks as Dicks will carry the same type of bikes at the mid to higher end that a bike shop will carry at the low end as well as the WalMart bikes that WalMart carries at generally lower prices (Schwinn, Huffy). I'd just get a a WalMart bike at WalMart. Same bike, lower price.
Shopping for a bike to replace my 20 year old Trek mountain bike. Those days are so behind me. Looking online at the cruisers and the comfort bikes with easy pass through bars. What brand of bike do you ladies ride? (Trek is out of my price range). I am going to head to Dicks Sporting Goods later on this week. They seem to stock affordably priced bikes with good reviews. Discuss.....
Mar
I ride a Fuji Tread 1.5 (2015) 16-speed cross terrain. Looks like a road/touring bike (dropped handle bars, skinny seat) but can be taken off-road, due to having a heavier frame and slightly bulkier tires. I paid $770, plus i had some add-ons put on that raised the price to about $1,000. It was purchased new from CK Cycles, an independent bike shop in Colonie, NY.
I'm built like a Mack truck, so my bike has a men's triangle frame, rather than the dropped crossbar.
The one thing I would caution you on, is the presumption that a thickly padded seat will be better. It will not. What happens is that the padding crushes down under your "sit bones" and rises up between them to press on soft items that should not be pressed on.
If you are planning to sit more upright than "racing position" - which it sounds like you are - I strongly recommend that you use a wide, flat, hard seat, not a wide thickly padded one.
Unfortunately, there are only two such that I'm aware of, both made by Brooks. I don't have the model numbers in front of me, but one of the models has coil springs (significant cushioning of road shocks) and the other has what I call "loop" springs (minimal cushioning of road shocks). They are pricey but offer the best chance of no bike seat pain. I ride the coil spring version on all my bicycles. For reference, back when the bicycle was the main mode of transportation for hundreds of thousands of British citizens, these Brooks saddles were the standard equipment on the hundreds of thousands of three-speed bicycles used for daily transportation. If they had not been satisfactory, that wouldn't have been the case.
The only thing is that they are leather saddles, so you need to keep them out of the rain.
You are so right! There is a reason for narrow firm seats in that they put your weight where it needs to be for the distance. Maybe counter-intuitive, but fact nonetheless.
You are so right! There is a reason for narrow firm seats in that they put your weight where it needs to be for the distance. Maybe counter-intuitive, but fact nonetheless.
Don in Austin
Agree! Seats should be wider the more upright you are, and narrower the lower you are. Although I did a casual bike tour on a wide padded seat - it lasted 4 hours and I was amazed that I wasn't sore! There are a handful of decent padded seats, but they are rare. And not as comfy as my leather saddle!
My wife is 42, is that middle aged? She rides a road bike, we bought it at REI. We ride quite a bit together, we did 94 miles on Memorial Day but our typical rides are between 30-50 miles.
I'd test ride a number of bikes. The difference between a $1000 bike and a $3500 bike to your normal beginner rider are small and imperceptible. But the difference between a $600 used nicer bike and any department store bike are astronomical.
Good luck!
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