Biking for Beginners: My Trip to Jack and Adams

I need a bike.

I want to commute places, and I want to compete in triathlons. Apparently, I need two bikes, not just one.

So on the one hand, I just need a bike to get me from my house to Whole Foods, the coffeeshop, and possibly downtown when it’s not 700 degrees outside.

But on the other hand, I’m thinking I might start training for a triathlon. As a former college athlete, I’m sure I can do it. But I think the rest of the people I’ve consulted on the best bike are a little TOO sure I can do it … they all think I need some amazing road bike that will make me super fast. I mean, I like being super fast, don’t get me wrong here, but I’m not even sure I’ll like competing in triathlons. I run all the time and I hate racing, so what’s different about triathlons?

Nonetheless, I dutifully went to Jack and Adams, where a (very attractive) dude talked to me a little bit about racing bikes, fit me for one, and set up an appointment for me to come and get properly fitted/test out a bike/take a bike out for three days for a test ride.

I come back and spin around on a bike, they consult about my ridiculously long legs and short torso, and I end up on a 56 (cm? inches? I don’t know!) Felt bike … retailing for a cool G (that’s $1,000). So much for practicing commuting! I’m not locking up a thousand dollar loaner bike outside the grocery store! So I go for a ride to the Blockbuster to return a movie–no leaving the bike involved. It goes well, but I do go REALLY FAST. Downhill, it’s a little scary, but exhilarating too.

The next day, I go for an hour-long ride, like my dude suggested. Despite the fact that I’m wearing a highly unflattering pair of padded biker shorts from 1999, my first sit on the bike is nearly impossible: my “sit bones” are bruised beyond belief. I spend the first five or six blocks gingerly easing myself into the seat while propping myself up on the pedals. Oh, and the pedals! “Tennis shoe clips,” while good for speed, are not for the faint of heart or uncoordinated. I spend at least four spins after each stop trying to get my foot into the dang clip.

While biking down the sidewalk on Lamar (is that illegal? biking on the sidewalk?), I decide I should check out the Pease Park trail. As I turn my nose down the hill to the gravel trail, I flashback to a bike accident I suffered on the hike and bike trail when I was 8 or 9–a chunky scar on my knee still pays homage to biking too fast on gravel. As I’m realizing what a bad idea this is, on my skinny road racing tires, the back tire spins out and I abort the mission. I jump off the bike.

Then I rode the bike home. I think she’s just too much bike for me to handle right now … I’m not comfortable with the rules of the road and dynamics of biking just yet. So I take the lovely Felt back to Jack and Adams, they don’t pressure me at all, and tell me they’d love to let me test ride another bike, or help me figure out what would work better for me.

So while I still haven’t checked out Mellow Johnny’s or Freewheeling, I can see why all my biker friends insisted that I go to Jack and Adams first. While it’s admittedly a little intimidating for newbies like me, they are beyond friendly, no-pressure, and they really just love and want to promote the biking community. The first dude who helped me said to me, “We don’t care where you buy your bike. We just want to get you fitted properly, and get you into the community. If you find a bike cheaper elsewhere, get it!” Then he grinned at me and said, “Just come to us for everything else.”