Looking for a bike

For a couple weeks now, I had the itch to get into cycling again. Not as a sport or a hobby, but as a tool, to commute and go to places nearby.

Around 10 years ago I used to have a pretty neat bike, it was a bit big for me but I could use it no problem. It was gifted to me by my uncle and I really liked it. However, we moved, and my dad told me he had to sell it to a friend.

I was very, very upset, but we couldn’t bring it with us, and eventually had to come to terms with it.

A couple years later, my dad gave me another bike, but I kind of neglected it for many years, I don’t know if it felt like betrayal or what but I only really used it twice and it never felt right. The bike was smaller too, with 24” wheels, and I was already (barely) an adult, so I felt too slow with it.

When I had the day off on Monday I decided I’d try and get that old bike up and running. It didn’t work out.

The tires were deflated and had some cracks, so I carried it with me and walked to a workshop to see if they could fix them—it was closed. I walked back and left the bike home, and took a bus to Walmart to buy a pump and inflate the wheels myself—it didn’t work. The bike was in a garage/storage room, a hand-made one with an aluminum ceiling and plenty of gaps, it was easy for moisture, dust and other elements to set in, so there’s that.

Anyway, I figured it wasn’t worth it, and decided that it was too small for me, so I’d get a used bike from a workshop instead.

Yesterday I went back to work, but after my shift was over I went to a bike shop nearby and saw a few options.

Unfortunately I was feeling kinda introverted and could only ask something like “a bike with different speeds that can go uphill and through dirt roads and stuff”, which was as generic as it gets. Anyway I was still offerend a few options, some were way out of my budget (which is around 450 bucks), but some others seemed pretty decent.

I didn’t take note of the brands for this post, I could only remember a Giant which was in reparations and would cost around 290 USD once fixed. I may return today once work is over and try and make some more questions. I literally walked to four other bike workshops from there all over the city—maybe just walking is fine—but most were closed or had a very small catalog.

Once I returned home I checked online for some reviews of affordable bikes in my country. I saw a few interesting options from brands such as Alubike, Gravel and Mercurio that seem to be popular in México and with prices to match the economy here. I’ve been looking at the Gravel Everest and the Mercurio Ranger, for the most part, with the Alubike Sierra as a more expensive option which may be worth the extra.

There are some pros and cons to consider here, I made a list with some more random thoughts:

• Buying online will require me to some assemble the bike, but learning how to do it might be fun.
• I could still assemble it wrong and ruin some part, but I am pretty confident in myself to figure it out.
• For the price of a new budget-friendly bike, I could buy a used one that’s higher quality.
• I am not super sure the bikes available will be higher quality, but it may not matter that much anyway.
• Buying used on a bike shop will let me try it immediately and check how it performs too.
• I could also buy and assemble a new and more known brand bike online, get it serviced, and call it a day.
• A bike shop will guarantee that it’s well assembled and maintained, I can get more equipment there.
• Supporting a small business that brings old bikes to life sounds kinda cool.
• I should still fix my older bike, maybe I could resell it after all.

Anyway, I am still on the fence on all of this, I am trying to figure out where does a bike fits in my current lifestyle. I don’t know if I’d use it to commute to work, since I need to go through a highway with a lot of trailers and trucks and it just seems super scary. By the time I get home it’s already kind of dark too.

So would I only use it during the weekends? Or I should learn how to be safe on the bigger roads? I also really enjoy just taking the bus and having an hour to spend there without worries.

Decisions must be made once again…

This is day 62 of #100DaysToOffload.