You have experienced this. You’re at a cookout or a party or a business function, and someone has ratted you out as a “serious cyclist” to some civilian type with questions about bikes. You get introduced or cornered, and then the questions come, usually with a preamble like, “Bill says you’re a bike expert.”
So after you’re done dissembling about your actual expertise for a minute, you surrender and say, “What’s your question?”
Here are the ones I get most often:
What bike should I get? – Well, this is the mother of all questions, isn’t it? And because you know a few things, your answer has to start with about a dozen questions of your own. What sort of riding do you want to do? When is the last time you rode? How often do you think you’re going to ride? Where? How much money do you want to spend?
In my experience, the person asking the question seldom has specific answers to any of these queries, and so it almost always ends with, “I’d go to your local bike shop and test ride a bunch of bikes in your price range and buy the one I liked best,” which is really where I should start the answer instead of trying to suss out anything more specific.
What bike should I get for my kid? – This is a classic, and what I love about it is that the kid in question might be four years old or might be twenty. The former needs a strider bike, probably. The latter needs something that’s just not going to get stolen. I’ve given people bikes in this scenario. “Here, just take this. It’s fine for what you need.” Or I’ve directed them to the bike shop. The answer is almost always the bike shop, not a dude at a cookout holding a half-eaten hot dog, even if he has overdeveloped quads and finely chiseled calves.
We have a bunch of bikes no one is riding anymore; how should I sell them? I always start this answer with, “Do you need the money?” Because really, just give those bikes away. Feed the virtuous cycle. In my experience, unless a bike is current and/or really nice, the money you’re going to get isn’t worth the hassle you’re going to go through to get it. But like, I don’t know, Craigslist. I’ve suggested that before and had people say, “Well, I don’t want a bunch of strangers coming to my house,” which I usually answer with a blank stare.
Finally, there are the mechanical questions like, my brakes are rubbing, what’s wrong? Your wheel is out of true, or your brakes need adjusting. Go to the bike shop. Go to the bike shop. Go to the bike shop. Why do people find it so hard to understand that the bike shop is there to help them with bike things, not people at parties who don’t even like parties anyway. The bike shop. The name should tell you everything you need to know. Are we just making small talk, or do you really think a stranger holding a lime seltzer and a cupcake has the answers to your not-at-all-burning questions?
Well, this turned into kind of a rant. I didn’t expect that. Anyway, what question do you get asked the most by non-cyclists?
Them “You ride a bike that far? I could never do that.”. Me, “Yes I ride that far and I’ve never seen an episode of The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. It’s all about choices.”
My favoite, recounted many times by my friend who ran the only bike shop in town, named The Bicycle Shop: “…do you sell bikes…?”
When people find out that I ride more than the average person, and by that I mean “at all”, the questions are usually about eBikes. This disappoints me.
I have had this one 2 or 3 times:
Them – “The brakes on my front wheel rub on one side, do you know what it could be?”
Me – “Do you have quick release wheels?” Them – “Yes.” Me – “Try checking to be sure the wheel is seated evenly in the drops outs (I usually say this in more lay terms).” Them – “It can’t be that. I think it must be something else.” Two or three days later, Them – “ I looked at the wheel and it was like you said. I just had to open the quick release and make sure the wheel was even.”
It has evolved over the years, but one that I’ve been using recently when asked things like “So you’re a pretty serious cyclist?” or anything involving the applied label of cyclist:
I ride bikes/I’ve ridden bikes a while/I like bikes, but I don’t consider myself a cyclist. Actually I try to avoid being anything that ends in “-ist.”
If they ask me how to choose a bike or where to get started, I tell them to go to the bikes shops in the area and pick the bike they like best at the shop they like best.
Sadly, most asked question now is “Why aren’t there as many bike shops?”
As I pointed out often in my column I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to the actual workings of the bike, so I’d always deflect to say that I used to write about bike racing and not so much about bikes. So the first question is, “Do you know Lance Armstrong?” And you can imagine where it goes from there …