Biking For Dummies

Introduction

Don’t buy upgrades, ride up grades.

—EDDY MERCKX, LEGENDARY PRO CYCLIST

Ithought writing this book would be fun, but I had no idea just how much I would enjoy it — or how much work it would be!

I started geeking out on bikes, their components, and their tech long before writing about them. I’ve obsessed over the specs and details that might make my own bike better, tweaked and upgraded my setup, and modified stock parts to suit my needs (or to shave off a few grams).

What I’ve realized is that none of those efforts compares to training harder. My bike got lighter, but my friends who consistently put in the work got faster and better at riding. We all had nice bikes, but I wasn’t putting in the required level of work.

That’s why I quote Merckx at the top of this introduction. As you’ll see, having a good-quality bike is important, but beyond that, the key to enjoying the bike is to just get out there and ride — whether your goal is fitness, green transportation, exploration, or racing trophies.

About This Book

My goal in writing Biking For Dummies is to help you find the best bike for you, get you riding it quickly and safely, bring you up to speed on the latest cycling trends, tech, and terms — and share my passion for cycling.

The point of writing any For Dummies title is to explain subjects so that beginners can understand and learn from them. But I challenged myself to do that and to write content that even my nerdiest bike friends would enjoy reading, too.

The result was an enormous first draft! We ended up cutting more than 100 pages during editing. Unfortunately, that included three full chapters on e-bikes, plus deep dives on mountain bike suspension, tips for evaluating used bikes, a guide to working with your local bike shop, and a lot more. Visit Dummies.com/go/bikingfd for content that didn’t make it into the book.

At times, I may sound overly harsh when talking about the cheapest bikes. I totally understand that budgets vary wildly, but hear me out. My first mountain bike was from a Target department store, and it wasn’t a good one. I’ve worked on many low-cost bikes over the years (because my friends didn’t listen and bought their kids a department store bike anyway), and I can tell you that the frustration from dealing with poorly functioning drivetrains, inaccurate shifting, and plastic parts that break easily leads to overall lower enjoyment that isn’t worth saving a few bucks. A bike is no good if it doesn’t work properly and you have little interest in riding it.

Sometimes, increasing your budget by as little as $100 gets you a bike that works much better, lasts longer, and makes you happier. That said, I’m stoked to see anyone riding a bike, so there’s no bike shaming here. I just want to help you find the best bike possible, so I dive deep into what makes one bike or part better than another.

This book replaces Bicycling For Dummies, and a lot has changed since that one was last updated in 2011! Electronic drivetrains have become the norm, disc brakes are on every type of bike, and e-bikes are taking over urban landscapes!

For better or worse, more and more bikes need batteries, but their shifting and performance have never been better. You can also find a wide variety of apps for planning, mapping, and tracking your rides, and even for customizing your bike’s performance! Technology is here to stay, but as you’ll see, it’s (mostly) not that complicated and truly does improve many aspects of cycling. Fortunately, you can still get a simple analog bike and just go ride, too.

Some of the bike terminology I mention may be new to you. To make things easy to digest, I italicize new terms and follow them up with simple-to-understand explanations.

If you run across a word or phrase you don’t immediately understand, rest assured that I explain it at the appropriate spot. I also provide sidebars to explain big-picture concepts that add perspective, on both cycling culture and technology trends.

Foolish Assumptions

The most foolish assumption I made as I wrote Biking For Dummies was that you’d know where I was coming from — as a cycling enthusiast. Writing this book made me rethink how to explain topics to a noncyclist audience, and that led to my rewriting entire sections and spending more time explaining basic concepts earlier in the book to bring you along for the ride at a beginner-friendly pace. This approach assumes that one or more of the following statements are true about you, the reader:

You believe that a bike is a bike is a bike. They’re all the same, right?

You’ve been given this book by a friend who thinks you’d enjoy riding a bike.

You have one or more friends who love riding and want you to join them.

You rode bikes as a kid but you are intimidated by starting again later in life.

Your kids or grandkids are all about biking and you want to join them.

You’re ready to ditch the car and ride a bicycle to commute to work, school, and the store.

You want to buy a higher-performance bike and start riding for fitness or to train for an event but don’t know what to look for, what type to buy, or how much to spend.

You borrowed a friend’s bike and enjoyed riding it and want to learn more before investing in a new bike of your own.

You want a reference for cycling terms and technology and basic tips on maintaining and repairing your own bike.

Regardless of how you ended up here, I wrote this book to share my love for the sport and the bicycle itself. It has changed my life and provided incredible opportunities to explore the world, reach deeper into various wooded areas and communities, and see things not possible from a car or on two feet. And, I’m fitter and faster at 50 than I’ve ever been! I hope you read this book and are inspired to use your bike to improve your own health and expand your horizons!

Icons Used in This Book

To break topics into bite-size chunks and therefore make this book easier to read, I’ve added a few icons in the margins to help call attention to important ideas, tips and tricks of the trade, and even more detail on specific topics.

Remember This icon is meant to help jog your memory about important aspects. Of course, I don’t give you quizzes on this stuff, but this info might help you when talking to your local bike shop or repair personnel, for example.

Technical Stuff When I’m about to delve a little deeper into a particular subject, I slap this icon on the text. You don’t have to take the deep dives with me, but they may be helpful on your journey toward greater understanding of the world of bikes.

Tip The Tip icon points to insider knowledge and other info I’ve learned about throughout my journey in the biking world. The tips may save you time, money, or headaches!

Warning The Warning icon points out common pitfalls that people often fall into with regard to biking, or common misconceptions about a particular topic.

Beyond the Book

To view this book’s Cheat Sheet, go to www.dummies.com and search for Biking For Dummies Cheat Sheet for a handy reference guide that addresses common questions about bikes and biking.

Where to Go from Here

Where you start reading is up to you. If you’re brand-new to the world of bikes, just turn the page and start with Chapter 1, which is a fun overview of biking! If you’ve been around bikes for a while, browse the table of contents and pick a chapter that interests you.

If you’re figuring out which type of bike to buy, I suggest reading Chapter 2 and then Chapters 7 through 9, in order. If you’re technically inclined and want to understand what makes some bike parts better than others, reading Chapters 3 through 6 will get you up to speed (heh!) on the latest drivetrain, brake, and component technology. And once you’re into it, check out Chapters 15 and 16 for training tips and details about some of the most fun bike trips, rides, and events on the planet!

Part 1

Starting Off on the Right Wheel

IN THIS PART …

Discovering the origins of the bicycle.

Determining the right size bike for you.

Exploring the basic components of a bicycle.

Chapter 1

Almost Everything You Need to Know about Bicycles

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Familiarizing yourself with the parts of bicycle

Bullet Exploring the perfect bike (or bikes) for you

Bullet Measuring the benefits of bike riding

The bicycle is mankind’s most efficient machine: gloriously simple, and simply glorious in its ability to move us around quickly and easily. Harnessing just two wheels and a little leg (or battery) power lets us roll around town faster and easier than walking and sometimes helping us transport goods, perform services, and even transport friends and family.

Riding a bike means freedom and independence. It provides transportation to school and work — or increasing opportunities for education and income. But that’s not all: Cycling is fun! It provides exercise and a chance to take in some fresh air. It allows people to see more of an area to explore than walking, and we can experience it better than driving.

In this chapter, I explain the basics of this remarkably simple machine, which has stood the test of time (with a few innovations along the way). Granted, there is a lot of the technology that goes into modern racing bikes and long-travel full-suspension mountain bikes, but they are all based on easy-to-understand principles and mechanics. Let’s take a quick look at how the modern bicycle came to be and how it works.

Recognizing Where Bicycles Come From

In about 1818, Baron Karl von Drais invented the Velocipede, more commonly referred to as the running machine or hobby horse (shown in Figure 1-1), which wasn’t much more than two wheels attached to either end of a plank of wood to sit on. Riders scooted along on them by kicking the ground like Fred Flintstone, much the way kids use Balance Bikes to learn how to ride today. (Training wheels are no longer recommended; I explain why in Chapter 7.)

Credit: alexrow / Adobe stock

FIGURE 1-1: The hobby horse.

Numerous iterations of the Velocipede were made throughout the 1800s, leading to the Boneshaker in the late 1860s (see Figure 1-2), which got its name from the extremely uncomfortable experience while riding it. (Ouch!) The boneshaker added a crankset and pedals directly to the front wheel. This meant you could pedal it, which was deemed more elegant than running atop the bike. But steering it got a little tricky — you had to turn the wheel that your feet were pedaling! Plus, speeds were limited by the size of the front wheel. These major design hiccups eventually led to the penny-farthing bike.

In the 1870s, the penny-farthing (so named because the wheels varied in size, much like the two British coins) was also known as the high-wheel bicycle. It introduced a much larger front wheel (see Figure 1-3). That meant riders could go faster, but, unfortunately, it put them 4 to 5 feet off the ground! Not only did this make mounting (and dismounting!) the bike a bit tricky, but falling off a bike that high could seriously hurt someone!

Credit: Vizetelly / Pixabay

FIGURE 1-2: The boneshaker.

Credit: Pink Badger / Adobe Stock

FIGURE 1-3: The penny-farthing.

The safety bicycle (see Figure 1-4) followed in the 1880s. So called because it has a much safer design than the penny-farthing, it incorporates the classic iteration of a double triangle design — a front triangle and a rear triangle, connected by the seat tube. Not only does this place the riders in a lower, more comfortable position, but the crankset is also finally detached from the wheel. Instead, a chain connected a chainring at the pedals to a cog on the rear wheel.

Credit: Oleksandr Babich / Adobe stock

FIGURE 1-4: The safety bicycle.

This allowed more freedom of steering, different gear ratios, and a wider range of sizes and designs to fit a wider range of riders. As you’ll see, there are a lot of variations on this model now available, but they’re all based on the original safety bicycle concept.

Identifying the Parts of a Bicycle

Most people are familiar with the basic parts of a bicycle from when we were kids. And everyone likely has a general idea of how bicycles work, from the time we first rolled (wobbled, likely) on our own with a parent (or two) running along behind — just in case — to those days when we learned just how important brakes were as that tree closed in frighteningly fast!

With few exceptions, the bicycle still consists of just two wheels, a frame, a saddle, a handlebar, and a human-powered, pedal-driven drivetrain, or the pedals and gears that convert power into motion.

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the main parts (shown in Figure 1-5) of a basic bicycle. I’ll show specific examples of various styles of bikes and go into much more detail in Chapters 2 through 6.

Tyler Benedict

FIGURE 1-5: The basic components of a modern bicycle.

If you read this book, you’ll become more familiar with other parts of the bike so that you can make informed decisions about which bike is right for you. Or, let’s say you need to get something repaired and you want to meet your repair person at eye level (You know — the crank thingy?), this book will provide you with all the tools to know your bike inside and out.

Producing a Bike for Every Rider

It’s a great time to be a cyclist, but it may also be a confusing time to be a newbie. Nowadays, there’s literally a bike for every purpose.

Not to confuse you right away, but in road riding there are race bikes, endurance bikes, criterium (or crit) bikes, climbing bikes, and aero bikes. Some bikes blend features from multiple categories to become solid all-rounders, but you can always find something for any niche — or custom build one to meet your specific needs.

Mountain bikes have cross-country (XC), downcountry (more trail-capable cross-country bikes), trail, all-mountain, enduro, freeride, and downhill. And for gravel, there are race, adventure, and bikepacking models. Cargo bikes have front loaders, rear loaders, and family haulers.

Whew! That was a lot, but don’t worry. In Chapter 7, I explain every variant and help you narrow it down to the best bike for the type of riding you will do.

Categorizing types of bikes

Here’s a quick primer on the main types of bikes you’ll find and where they’re used.

Road bike: Skinny tires and curved handlebars are designed for going fast on roads.

Gravel bike: It’s like a road bike, but with bigger tires to handle dirt and gravel roads.

Mountain bike: Flat bars, big tires, and suspension help this model tackle MTB trails and bike parks from mild to wild.

Commuter bike: This one has flat bars, medium tires, and an upright seating position, usually with storage options for getting through the city with work or school gear.

Fitness/hybrid: This upright bike with skinnier tires blends road bike speed with commuter bike comfort.

Cargo bike: Usually an e-bike, this one has mounting points for baskets, trays, bags, shelves, and other ways to transport gear and people.

e-bike: A bicycle with an electric motor to assist your pedaling, this one comes in all varieties, though you still have to pedal. Otherwise, it’s a moped.

I can name more, including kids’ bikes and specialty models for special use cases. Again, I’ll explain all of them in great detail in Chapter 7. And I’ll share tips on where and how to buy a new (or used) bike in Chapter 8.

Weighing the Benefits of Riding a Bike

From getting in shape to saving money to exploring new areas, the benefits of riding a bike go way beyond the obvious. This section details a few of my favorite reasons for cycling.

Taking a look at the physical health benefits

Exercise in any form is beneficial. Our human bodies are meant to move, but modern life has diminished the need for movement (or, sadly, effort).

Riding a bike is obviously exercise, but it provides so many different ways to push your body and improve its physical state. In Chapter 15, I provide tips on training to prepare for biking adventures and explore ways to get the full benefit of seeing the world on two wheels.

Warning Now’s a good time to remind you to check with your doctor before starting any exercise program. Cycling is an enjoyable, low-impact form of exercise that you can ease into, but (and especially if you’re starting from pure couch potato status) it’s a good idea to see your doctor first for a basic checkup to make sure you have no underlying health issues.

Examining the mental health benefits

Studies have shown that physical exercise boosts blood flow to the brain, which can help you learn and concentrate better.

Dr. Peter Attia, a well-known longevity practitioner and the author of Outlive, says all the research he’s seen (which is a lot) shows that regular, daily, and varied exercise is one of the most powerful ways to slow cognitive decline and boost overall vitality, too.

That’s huge. Imagine boosting your performance at work or school by riding there instead of driving, with the additional perk that it’s probably helping you live longer with a better overall quality of life.

And there’s more.

All riding requires coordination between what you’re seeing and what you’re doing — braking, shifting, turning, pedaling — which helps improve coordination.

Mountain biking cranks this neuromuscular coordination to 11, introducing varied terrain and obstacles like trees, rocks, roots, drops, and jumps as well as more frequent shifting and braking. Talk about a full body and mind workout.

If you had to pick one full-body workout, there’s not much that beats mountain biking.

Saving money

Sure, you have to buy the bike, but any form of transportation (car, metro pass, ride sharing) is going to cost something. The beauty of a bicycle is that you get exercise while also saving money on gas or fares.

The savings go deeper if you consider how the long-term health benefits will likely offset doctors’ bills for lifestyle-related conditions. Many of the most expensive and most common modern medical issues are caused by sedentary lifestyles (and a poor diet, but that’s another book), and riding a bike frequently and with an intentional effort on improving fitness can reduce the likelihood of dealing with expensive health issues.

Some health insurance companies and employers even provide discounts for physical activity, so why not get all the other benefits of cycling while also saving money?

Chapter 2

Sizing Up the Right Bike and Fit

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Sizing up the angles and measurements of a bicycle

Bullet Learning how geometry affects the handling of a bicycle

Bullet Choosing the right bike size

Bullet Fitting the bike to your body

Originally, I was first going to describe all the different types of bicycles that you can buy and then add this chapter. But, as the chapters came together, I realized that you should first understand how a bicycle’s geometry — the lengths of the tubes and the angles between them — affect its handling and why it differs from bike to bike and from category to category.

You should also understand the various types of components, drivetrains, cockpits, wheels, and tires — and how they affect your bike's comfort, handling, and performance. I cover these topics in Chapters 3 through 6.

Of course, if you just want to see the bikes, skip to Chapter 7, and then come back here to learn how to determine the proper bike size and dial in a proper fit.

Measuring Up to a Bicycle’s Angles

The geometry chart shown in Figure 2-1 shows a typical road bike, but the measured angles and distances are the same for every type of bike, and most brands post their geometry charts on their websites. Familiarizing yourself with what each angle and measurement means and where it is on the bike will help you understand the difference between a bike with slack angles versus one with steep angles, for example. If you need a refresher on the basic parts of a bicycle, check out the section in Chapter 1 about recognizing the parts of a bicycle.

Courtesy of Pursuit Cycles LLC, PursuitCycles.com

FIGURE 2-1: A geometry chart for a typical bicycle.

This list describes what all the numbers on a geometry chart mean:

Effective Top Tube (A): The horizontal distance from the center of the steering axis at the top of the head tube backward to the center of the seatpost is called the effective top tube (or ETT) length because it’s a straight-line measurement of the distance, which is a more useful measurement than the actual top tube's length — those can be angled.

Whereas bicycles used to have fairly standard proportions and their size was often conveyed by the seat tube length (for example, a bike with a 58-centimer seat tube would be designated as a size 58 bike), nowadays most cyclists look at ETT along with reach (D) to get a good sense of whether the bike is the right size.

Head Tube Length (B): The head tube length is simply the height of the head tube. Racier road and gravel bikes will have a shorter head tube to help the rider maintain a low aero position (because the lower you are, the more aerodynamic you are, of course), and endurance bikes have taller head tubes to provide a more comfortable, upright riding position. For performance bikes, the goal is to find the head tube height so that most riders don’t need to add a lot of spacers or oddly angled stems to achieve a good fit.

Mountain bikes follow a similar design philosophy but must take fork length and fork travel into account. As fork travel increases, so does the fork’s height, and so longer-travel bikes tend to have very short head tubes in order to avoid a tall stack (C) and keep the rider in a low, racy riding position.

Stack (C): Stack is the vertical height from the center of the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube’s center. Many bicycle fitters use stack and reach (D) as their starting points for fitting a rider to a new bike. Even though you then add a stem above the head tube, the stack gives you a general idea of how tall the front of a bike will be in relation to the bottom bracket.

Reach (D): Reach is the horizontal measurement from the center of the bottom bracket to that same point on the top of the head tube. It gives you (or your fitter) a good idea of how far you’ll reach forward to meet the handlebars, and it’s a more apples-to-apples comparison between bikes, because different seat angles between models make ETT a less-than-reliable comparison.

Remember The stem length & angle, handlebar width, handlebar sweep, seatpost setback, and saddle position allow you to fine-tune your position forward or backward on the bike and stretch you out or help you sit upright. So, knowing your ideal form (from a good bike fit or just test-riding a few bikes) lets you get a close-enough fit and then use the components to dial in the perfect fit.

The head angle (E), fork offset (F), and trail (G) all work together to comprise the main factor in designing a bike’s overall handling. Changing one affects the others, so I’ve lumped them here with another graphic (see Figure 2-2) to illustrate how they combine forces to give your bike its steering personality.

Head Angle (E): The head (and seat) angles are measured as degrees from 0, where 0 is parallel with the ground and 90 degrees is perpendicular (straight up) from the ground.

Most road bikes have head angles between 71 and 73 degrees. In the grand scheme of things, this would be considered a steep head angle. As that number gets smaller, people in the industry like to say that it gets slacker.

Gravel bikes get a slightly slacker head angle, usually between 69 and 72.5 degrees, depending on the intended use. Mountain bikes range from 68 to 69 degrees for short-travel XC (cross-country) bikes all the way down to between 62 and 63 degrees for long-travel downhill bikes — and everything in between.

FIGURE 2-2: Closeup of head angle and fork offset measurements.

Generally speaking, the steeper the head angle, the sharper a bike turns but the twitchier it feels at higher speeds. Slacker head angles create a more stable ride but feel slower to turn. However, this can be fine-tuned by the fork offset, described next.

Fork Offset (F): Imagine a straight line running down the head tube and through the center of the fork’s steerer tube, or the part of the fork that goes through the head tube, to a point on the ground (x). Now imagine a parallel line sitting slightly in front of the fork offset that intersects the fork’s axle, and note where it hits the ground (y). The distance between those two lines at the ground is the fork’s offset.

Most forks have 40–52mm of offset. Offset is how a bike designer tweaks the handling because it will change the trail, described next.

Trail (G): Now imagine a line intersecting the fork’s axle and drawn straight down to the ground. The distance between that point (z) and (x) is the trail, and it’s extremely important to overall steering stability.

Trail and fork offset have an inverse relationship. Increase offset and trail will decrease, and vice versa. Imagine how a slacker head angle will also increase the trail by pushing (x) further forward from (z), and then you can see how a designer can use fork offset to fine-tune the trail.

Technical Stuff So, what does trail do? If you can imagine a shopping cart you might find at the local grocery store, you may able to visualize how the front wheels trail behind the little metal housing on the outside. The point where that housing connects to the cart is the steering axis. When you push a cart forward, the wheels drag behind the axis, which is how they maintain a generally straight path. (Except for that one particular grocery cart — I always get that danged wobbly cart!)

If you were to lengthen the arms that hold the wheel (essentially the cart’s forks), you would create a longer trail figure, which would make the cart even more stable — perfect for standing on the back and coasting through the parking lot. Its turning radius, however, would increase and make it harder to maneuver through the aisles.

It's the same with bikes: A longer trail makes the bike more stable but increases the turning radius. This works well for longer-travel mountain bikes where you’re riding down steep terrain at high speed, and their extremely slack head angles have the added bonus of pushing the front wheel farther out in front of you so that you’re less likely to go OTB (over the bars) if you hit an obstacle.

Conversely, a shorter trail gives the bike quick handling, where small inputs have more dramatic effects on steering — but it won’t feel as stable and requires more vigilance from the rider. You’ll often find steeper head angles and a short trail on road racing bikes where snappy handling is important, but you wouldn’t want to get lazy while riding in a pack.

The rest of a bicycle’s measurements combine to create safe handling, proper fit, and good biomechanics as you ride.

Seat Angle (H): Measured the same as the head angle, the seat angle determines how a bike situates your body in relation to the wheels and cockpit, or the combination of handlebar, stem, seatpost, and saddle, but most importantly, it puts your hips and knees in the proper position over the pedals for optimum biomechanics.

The goal is to position you in the sweet