Buying a Bike is Like Buying a Computer

I DON’T THINK I’M NOT SURE, BUT THEN AGAIN, MAYBE I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK, PERHAPS (OR NOT)

by Kayceebikes

Some cyclists are incredibly avid, riding every day, rolling thousands of miles a year, while others are happy tooling down their local paved bike path. Still others are weekend warriors only, who love the sport, but wish they could find more time to ride.

For some people, coming into a bike shop is a totally random and unintended event. In fact, for everybody there's a first time to enter abike shop. So why did they stop in today? Well, various reasons. Some may be waiting for a take-out order from the restaurant next door. For others, it will obviously be a while before the DMV now serving no. 034 will get around to serving 067. A tire rotation and oil change take at least 20 minutes, so the bike shop looks like a fun place to kill some time.

Sometimes people want to be left alone to browse in this new world of cycling, to look at sleek road racing bikes, the likes of which they’ve never seen before, or mountain bikes with disc brakes (what will they think of next?). Some look at the price tags in disbelief, remarking that some bikes cost more than their motorized cousins.

Anyway, on a recent autumn Sunday, the weather wasn’t very good for biking. It was cold, damp, rainy-bordering-on-sleety, dark, dank and ugly. I decided to get a friend who teaches computer skills to grade schoolers to accompany me in a quest for a new laptop computer. All in all, we visited three big computer/electronics stores, trying to intelligently compare prices, user support and service, extended warranties, Centrino vs. Pentium, mega this, RAM that, giga here and read-write there. We ended the afternoon not buying anything, but with a new understanding of how some people must feel when they come into a bike store for the first time. In a word: confused.

I drew one powerful conclusion: I will not buy a computer from a store where no one was available to help, or where the store’s personnel were impatient, and unable (or unwilling) to answer questions. In one store, we couldn’t even figure out the prices. Neither could the people who worked there.

Any way, there is a point to all this rambling. I have gained a positive new perspective on the uninitiated bike shopper as a result of my own negative experience as a laptop shopper. Buy your bike from a shop where the personnel seem tounderstand that people need intelligent answers to intelligent questions about bicycles, not a bunch of techno-babble. Go in and spend some time before you spend money on a bike!

When you walk into a bike shop and see dozens of different bikes all through the store, you may feel as confused as I felt looking at an array of twenty different laptops. Why do two seemingly similar-looking bikes (or laptops) differ in price by hundreds of dollars? What justifies the price difference? What can this bike (laptop) do better than another one? How do I find one that fits me and my needs? Will this bike (laptop) keep up with me as my skills improve? Does it make sense to buy a less expensive bike (laptop) now and upgrade later, or get something a bit better from the start?

My conclusion was simple. When setting out to buy something as expensive and seemingly complicated as a bike or computer, learn as much as you can, narrow down which model or models fit your budget and would serve your needs now and in the future, and get the best bike or computer you can within those parameters.

If you have to choose between buying a bike or buying a computer, well....I'd buy the bike!

Please visit www.ranchbikes.com & http://stores.ebay.com/Bike-Boutique