By Josh Hendrickson
Bicycling is a deadly serious activity. NOT! It is real fun with the right bike and equipment. Biking can be fun for just cruising around, or for exercise to get in shape and to stay that way. It is also a good way to get around if you don’t have a car.
As far as getting started in bicycling, the best thing to do would be to start off with a less expensive bicycle. Ones like Huffy and Murray are good, inexpensive bikes to start with. They are good for just puttsing around the neighborhood. These bikes are good for the beginner and someone who is not interested in investing in a more high performance bike.
Now, it you are interested in getting into some more serious biking, you might want to look into some more serious equipment. TREK, Schwinn, and Bridgestone are some of the high performance bikes you could get. TREK and Bridgestone are some good mountain bikes. TREK also has good road bikes. Schwinn is more touring and road bikes. The more high performance bikes have better components and better performance.
To tour, get a bike (like the discontinued TREK 520) that has all the attachments for the bags and panniers. You can get front bags, rear bags, handlebar bags, and under seat bags. Touring can be fun with the right equipment. You can go cross state, or if you are the adventurous type you could go cross country. Make sure you have a tire repair kit with you.
Mountain biking is a type of off road bicycling. You ride to the top of a mountain or big hill, and once you reach the top you ride down. It can be very dangerous. You can also ride off-road on flat ground or on rough trails. You can ride on the road, too.
I ride because I love everything about it. The speed, the mechanics, and it’s just fun! It is also a challenge for me, to see how fast I can go and how far I can ride in a certain amount of time. The last two months of summer I went over 1,000 miles in the time I had.
Biking can be VERY dangerous, no matter how good you think you are. If you want to be safe, wear a helmet.