10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Cycling

Here's 10 more things I wish I knew when I started cycling. You don't need drop bars, but there's a reason why recreational and sports cyclists gravitate towards them. Firstly, it puts your hands into a more neutral position. So if you just stand naturally, then if you lift up your arms while keeping your hands relaxed, they're pretty much in the same position as a drop handlebar shifter would put you in. Whereas using a flat bar, you have to completely rotate your wrists. So switching to drop bars can often help if you're getting hand, wrist, shoulder, or neck pain. It's a more neutral position or as close as we can get while riding a bicycle, which granted we're not designed to do in the first place. Second, your weight distribution is improved. Sitting really upright on a flat bar bike is fine for a short amount of time, but it means most of your weight is going into your saddle. Cue a sore arse. Drop bars will generally stretch you out a lot further. So there's more weight on your hands and less weight on your saddle. So it's distributed more evenly. Lastly, and this won't matter to everybody, it's faster. You generally have a smaller frontal area when you're riding drop handlebars, which means you can cut through the wind more easily, essentially free speed. There's no hard and fast rules here though. If a flat bar works for you, then fantastic. Bike weight doesn't matter as much as you think. It's easy to look at cycling media and the marketing and make you think your bike's too heavy. I think the obsession with bike weight has come from it being the only thing we can measure and compare really easily. It's hard to compare aerodynamics. It's hard to compare ride feel. It's often anecdotal. Whereas weight, you can just put your bike on a scales and find out. Unless your ride is from the bottom of a hill to the top of a hill, a couple of extra kilograms isn't going to make that much difference to the total amount of time it takes from the start of the ride to the end of your ride. We've been testing bikes around the 400 pound mark on this channel recently, and they all weigh about 11 kilograms. That is plenty light to do a huge variety of riding. Bear in mind, I regularly ride a 30 kilogram bike set up across countries, and I still have a fantastic time. Yeah, it's slower on the climbs, but it's still totally rideable and it still gets you to where you need to go. So unless you live on a 10th floor apartment and you have to carry your bike upstairs, or you're racing, don't worry too much about bike weight. Don't feel pressure to ride really hard all the time. Volume is more important than riding hard, if you want to get faster. If you want to get nerdy, have a look at Seiler's hierarchy of training needs. Volume is the most important thing, and this is aimed at people who are training seriously. It's especially not worth focusing too much on the things at the really pointy end, if you haven't got those more important things addressed first. Riding more will lead you to get used to your bike, used to fixing mechanicals, used to riding with other people, how to dress for the temperature, you'll discover local loops. All of this will happen faster if you focus on volume instead of intensity. Although if you want to ride hard, go for it. It's fun. Just don't feel pressured to, if you don't want to. It's not the most important thing, even if you're training to be fast. Make friends with your local bike shop and be good to them. Bikes go wrong sometimes, and it's worth knowing a few mechanical skills, basic ones. However, particularly more modern technology like disc brakes, tubeless now on road bikes, can be a bit daunting. So having a good relationship with your local bike shop can pay dividends. Granted, all shops aren't created equal. Check your Google reviews, see what the deal is and find one that suits you and your needs. Also worth bearing in mind is that if you pay a little bit more than online prices and use your local bike shop, you'll get aftercare as well. Chances are they're going to fit things for you. And if something does go wrong, you can usually just swap it out in the bike shop and they'll do the warranty for you, but give you a brand new thing straight away. So there's loads of benefits. Generally, if you bring in things you've bought online to a bike shop for them to fit, there's going to be excessive labor charges. So if you do the maths, it often works out cheaper just to buy from your local shop. Support the LBS. Knowing which things are going to make a real difference in terms of upgrades to your bike. A few small and affordable changes can make a real difference to how your bike rides. High quality tires and appropriate gearing is always first on my list when I get a new bike, followed by contact points. So saddle, handlebars and handlebar tape. You'll eventually work out what shape works for you. I've ended up with five pairs of the same handlebars. So now when I do get a bike, I can switch them to my favorite ones. Stuff that isn't really worth upgrading until a lot later. Groupset, ceramic bearings, fancy jockey wheels and carbon finishing kit. It doesn't really make a difference to how your bike feels, but it might look cool. So if you want to buy them, go for it. Oh, and an extra note here, a quality pair of cycling shoes will make more difference than a fancy pair of carbon wheels. It's where all of your power, or lack thereof, goes. It's the rider, not the bike. Perfectly demonstrated by Sam Pilgrim here, riding a bike made out of a bed down a trail, faster than most people can ride a full suspension mountain bike down a trail. Equally, Jens Voigt can finish a world tour bike race on a children's size bike, which he swapped for his bike when it went wrong with a fan at the side of the road. Affordable bikes have never been better and a 400 pound bike can do pretty much everything you want it to do. Technology has trickled down. The lower end group sets now are lightweight, really durable, feel really great in your hands. The shifters are comfortable. Cheaper frames are well-made and tires are grippy and puncture resistant, even at the lower price points. Bikes at entry level have never been so good. Always have spares with you, even if you're not confident in fixing a puncture. I always carry a little bag under my saddle with a spare inner tube, a tiny little patch kit. I prefer the ones with a separate little bit of glue instead of pre-glued because they work better, a multi-tool with a chain breaker on it. So if your chain snaps, you can reattach it and a mini pump. I prefer a mini pump over CO2 because you can keep using it. But if you want a super fast puncture change, maybe consider taking CO2 with you as well. Even if you don't end up using it yourself, you could save someone else's day. So always take those spares and be prepared. Learning slow skills. It's often overlooked or taken for granted. It might be worth working on your slow speed skills because over time it translates to your faster riding and creates much more confident and capable riders further down the line. Some simple drills can quickly teach a beginner rider how their weight distribution on the bike affects the handling, how to maneuver up curbs and over potholes safely without getting a puncture. And it's a great thing to get refreshed on after a winter of riding on an indoor trainer, if you live where we live. There's actually some great drills on the USA Cycling website. I'll put a link in the description down below. And if you're based in London, a shout out here to Velocipossy, a women's cycling club that do slow skills sessions. Link to their website is in the description down below. I wish I knew the bike price sweet spot. You can spend a hundred pounds on a bike. You can spend 20,000 pounds on a bike, but how much should you spend? For this, we need a graph. Diminishing return. Here you can see bike goodness goes up drastically up to 1,000 pounds. You've gone from a bike shaped object at the lower end to a fully functional, raceable speed machine. Past 1,000 pounds, you're still making gains in bike goodness. Frames become lightweight, wheels get lighter, and you get more gears squeezed in, which makes it easier to pedal your preferred cadence. Right up to 2,000 pounds. After 2,000 pounds, what are you really getting? Electric gears, quite nice. Lighter components. Yeah, all right. Ceramic bearings. Better carbon layup, so it feels nicer and comes out even lighter. Custom paint and bespoke stuff right at this end here. But does any of that later stuff really make a difference to your life? Point number 10, it might take over your life. You're probably going to become a weirdo who keeps your bike indoors, sets alarms for 5 AM so you can go riding before work, but it's a great community and a great hobby. Just remember to also enjoy non-cycling stuff too. It's riding a bike. It's meant to be fun after all. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked this video, please subscribe for more videos like this. Let us know what you wish you knew when you started cycling in the comment section down below.