The Chainlink

Biking for fitness

Looking to get into biking for fitness purposes. I live in the city and am interested in riding around town, on the lake front and potentially to work every now and then. I used to bike all the time in the suburbs but have not in the city yet. Is a single speed/fixed gear or a road bike with gears better for my purpose? And would you be able to recommend the best shops in Chicago to buy from/ what bikes I should be looking at brand and model wise. Thanks guys!

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Permalink Reply by Alex Z on June 25, 2014 at 1:19pm

"For fitness purposes" is a bit vague. I'm sure intensive fitness people would say you want a multi-speed so you can optimize your heart rate or whatever. I find that a 20-mile ride is plenty of exercise regardless of that stuff. :) And IMO a single-speed is perfectly adequate.

There are many other Chainlink threads discussing people's favorite bike shops. I bought my bike at Working Bikes, which is a great way to find an inexpensive road bike and a great place to support.

Happy biking! Be sure to buy a U-lock and lock your bike properly! :)

Permalink Reply by Ifi Susana on June 25, 2014 at 1:44pm

What Alex's said. For more than 20 miles, get a road bike, for less fixie is great (but try to get brakes). My favorite shops are BFF Bikes (Armitage and Damen) and Turin (Damen and Lawrence). My commuter bike is a single speed and the most I ride on it at a single sitting is about 10 miles. My "workout/training/potential racing" bike is a road, but I generally ride more than 30 miles on it. You will totally get a great work out with a single speed, but if you are wanting more endurance road is the way to go.

Permalink Reply by Lisa Curcio on June 25, 2014 at 1:48pm

Those are big questions!  And the answer will be different for everyone.  As Alex said, what do you mean by "fitness"?  Are you concerned with your weight and want to ride to loose weight?  Are you feeling like you should just "do something" for exercise?  Do you want to ride really fast for an aerobic work-out?

Most of us who regularly post seem to be commuters and many also ride for recreation or sport.  Lots have single speed and fixed gear bikes.  Lots have hybrid bikes. Lots have road bikes.

Brand/model?  We all have different opinions and it so much depends on what you are going to do with the bike.  Heck, there are a few ( :-) ) of us who have more than one bike!  Different bikes for different things.

And there are a number of very good bike shops in Chicago.  MY personal favorites are Comrade Cycles, JC Lind, BFF Bikes, On the Route, and Rapid Transit.  There is no order to that list because they all have a slightly different focus in the bike they carry, but they all have good people who will help you find what you want.

Permalink Reply by Tominator on June 25, 2014 at 3:00pm

I have a fixed gear bike and a single speed bike. I have done long rides on both. Single speed can work for long rides -- I've done 40 miles on it. I wouldn't automatically rule out a single speed. Fixed is a little more work.

Best place: so many good shops in this City. Lately, I've seen some really good deals at the little bike shop on the Lakefront path by the Waveland Golf Course. The bike shop on Lincoln south of Belmont (On the Route?) has some nice bikes at decent prices.

Day in or out, Performance at Halsted and Diversey has good bikes at some of the lowest prices in the City. Granted, you are getting a Fuji or Scattante but the prices are really decent.

Craiglist is amazing if you want to buy used and am comfortable knowing what you are looking at.



Jeff Schneider said:

For city riding, especially if you are just getting used to riding in heavy traffic, an internal gear hub is best. City riding involves a LOT of stop and go, including some unplanned stops. Being able to downshift while standing still is nice; you can always start in a nice low gear so that the knees don't get stressed. Nothing prevents you from downshifting with a derailleur, but you have to do it before you stop, so it requires more planning and may be more distraction from watching the traffic than you want.

A single speed (or not bothering to shift) is OK for short distances, but of course you will almost NEVER be in precisely the right gear.  Again, that puts more stress on the knees.

Permalink Reply by Tom Bart on June 25, 2014 at 4:50pm
Fitness wise I mean to lose weight and just to continue to do it as exercise/have the ability to ride the lake front. I've been looking at the Fuji track classic cause it's not TOO expensive and has brakes, any comments on it?
Permalink Reply by chixieonfixie on June 25, 2014 at 6:12pm

I would suggest patronizing the chainlink.org sponsor Yojimbos Garage on Clybourn, personally.  Lots of good deals and great service.  http://yojimbosgarage.com/blog/

And fixies.

Permalink Reply by Live Grit on June 25, 2014 at 6:23pm

I recommend a geared bike for fitness.  With gears you can challenge yourself without having to ride crazy fast and you can also drop down into an easier gear for interval training.

Whatever bike you decide to go with, make sure its the right frame size for you.  Bikes can be positioned so they "fit", but if the frame is too big or too small you may not be able to get as comfortable as you want to.  If its not comfortable for you to ride, you won't ride it!

When thinking of your budget for a new bike also consider the cost of a new helmet (helmets only have about a 3 year life span), a good bike lock (u-lock or strong chain) and maybe a new saddle. Many bike come with terrible stock saddles that will hurt. Bike seats have come a long way in the past 10 years, they don't have to hurt. The City of Chicago bike map is a great resource for riding routes. Its free and available in most bike shops

-Sara from Live Grit (bike shop in the west loop)

Permalink Reply by KL on June 25, 2014 at 10:16pm

+1 for geared bikes, U-Lock, helmet. 

I'd recommend you take your time making a decision, going to many bike shops, and taking plenty of test rides until you find a bike shop you like and a bike that feels great. 

There are lots of great bikes out there but for quick hybrids check out the Trek FX, Specialized Sirrus, Giant Escape, Cannondale Quick, and Fuji Absolute while for road bikes check out the Trek 1 & Crossrip, Specialized Allez, Giant Defy, Cannondale CAAD & Synapse, and the Fuji Newest/Roubaix.

Permalink Reply by Chitown_Mike on June 26, 2014 at 9:24am
+2 for a geared bike. But honestly if you are looking to lose weight, get a bike you'll want to ride. Just buying a bike that doesn't get ridden and ends up on craigslist after a year does you no good. Find one you are excited about riding. For me that was my old 82 Schwinn Continental, a bottom of the barrel bike in the 80s.

However that bike wheeled me to losing 55 lbs, because I wanted to ride it versus feeling like I had to if that makes sense. Now we got rid of one car, mine, so I have to commute by bicycle to work and anywhere else I want to go if I need to. But I don't feel forced to because I got used to it when I didn't have to. Some people can do the "burn all the bridges" steps and sell their car and go right to a bike but I was too out of shape to do that.

The other is ride YOUR ride, don't worry about everyone else. I was 272 lbs when I started out and 15 mph was super fast for me and anything over 20 mmiles wore me out. Now 15 seems eextremely slow and I do a 30 mile ride for fun exercise. But I had to learn to ride my ride, and don't get on Strava because you'll feel Iike a chump with all the racers that use it and purposely work segments for KOM, I was on there and gave up.

I did get a heart rate monitor to view my rides and keep myself in a specific range, which really helped but I haven't used the monitor this year because I know where my body should be when riding, but it gave me a great baseline to work off of originally.

And the MOST important thing IMO......you can't out ride a bad diet. I tried to and I didn't lose jack. A calorie count like myfitnesspal or similar will help you twofold. One you'll see exactly how much you are actually eating. Two, if you plateau you'll see that you'll need to trim more OR add calories. I plateaued for a month or so last season and wasn't losing weight no matter how less I ate. Once I added calories the weight loss continued.

Feel free to message me, there is a lot more to weight loss on a bike but it is very doable. And having someone who is doing it or has done it can be great encouragement. It was for me!
Permalink Reply by chixieonfixie on September 7, 2014 at 12:08pm

So Tom  - what did you decide on?

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