Buying a bicycle

Several of the clergy bloggers I linked to yesterday have been talking about cycling recently. Maggi has been learning to ride a bike, whilst Paul has written this rather good piece ‘Bicycles – surely a sign of the kingdom‘.

And there’s something truly wonderful about a machine which can propel a human being at speeds exceeding our running speed, without contributing a single ounce to global pollution. The bicycle is a parable of faith: needing the rider to work with the machine, enjoying its benefits but also taking responsibility for their own contribution to maintaining its forward momentum (and if you give up peddling long enough, you will stop and fall off!)

I’m hoping to buy a new bike shortly. I do already have a mountain bike but it is a little bit of a relic from my racing days in the early 90s. I have a birthday coming up too which is a good excuse. I am quite inspired by the latest generation of ‘hybrid’ bikes – part mountain bike, part road bike. You can get quite a reasonable amount for your money too. I have seen the Raleigh Pioneer Metro GLX for around £250 and the Claud Butler Classic for as little as £177.99. This might seem like a lot but it really isn’t compared with the cost of owning a vehicle or repeated public transport trips. You can get less expensive bikes but with heavier steel frames and cheap components such as the brakes etc which seem to me like a bit of a false economy.

Has anyone reading bought one of these ‘hybrid’ bikes? Am I thinking along the right lines?