Comments on: The Commuter Package

By: Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | Women’s True Beginner Class

Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | Women’s True Beginner Class — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:07:36 +0000

[...] is similar to the attraction that the entry-level triathlon packages might have for “true beginner” triathletes. Beginners are more likely to participate when all barriers to entry are [...]

By: Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | The Big Initiatives

Google Maps ‘Bike There’ | The Big Initiatives — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:04:34 +0000

[...] Offer bike shop “commuter packages“ (like this triathlon shop does for beginning triathletes), and continue to entice [...]

By: Paul Rivers

Paul Rivers — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:12:49 +0000

“There are stores like Walmart, Target, and REI, but I don’t feel like they’re necessarily good advocates for lifestyle and commuter cycling. Not that they couldn’t be—it’s just that they probably would not want to be. There’s not enough money in it for them, I suspect, and doing so is just not really in line with their business.”

While I haven’t had a very good experience with bike shopping at REI, corporate certainly seems to feel that bike commuting is very much in line with their business - just check out their commuter bike:
http://www.rei.com/product/744803

Every time I’ve been in the store they always have 2-4 of these bikes sitting there.

By: dr2chase

dr2chase — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:36:19 +0000

I am not sure about the whole chain-guard thing. I have had the peculiar pants-failure mode of catching the cuff on the end of the right-side crank arm, getting wrapped, and tearing. Pants clips aren’t reliable, so I either end up stuffing my pants into my socks (very chic) or just going the shorts/shants/tights route.

The bell, I am not sure. My voice is much less ambiguous, and the last time it really mattered, it was getting dark, and my signal was “I see you, I see your dog”. Ding-ding would not have cut it.

I’m really stuck on the gearing advice. Novice riders are pretty hopeless with derailleurs, and the way bikes are sold nowadays is pretty hopeless, too. The high gears are outlandishly high, the low gears are outlandishly low, and no sane person is going to remember the exact combination of ups-and-downs to get the finest interleaving of gears (assuming one even exists). My current best guess for a commuter/novice is to start with an internal hub, either a Shimano Inter-7 or a SRAM iMotion 9 (see http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/internal-gear-hub-review/ for comparisons), to get the appropriate combination of even spacing and range.
(The Sturmey-Archer 8 would be ok, except that the range is goofy — you need almost a 1:1 ratio between front chainring and rear sprocket).

Add to the wish list, slick(ish) tires, as wide as possible.

I would also consider choosing a bike that was amenable to an xtracycle upgrade (135mm rear spacing, 26″ tires, no rear shock.) If someone really takes to commuting, pretty soon they’ll get serious about carrying stuff and overflow their panniers.

For what it’s worth, here’s a summary of the bikes we looked at (commuting constraints also, plus a dropped top tube) for my wife recently:

http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/choosing-a-new-bike/