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6 things every new road cyclist needs Dec 2018Get in gear - 6 essentials every new road cyclist needs in their starter kit
Are you new to road cycling? The good thing is that it’s pretty easy to get into road cycling, and apart from the main purchase of a bicycle, it’s not the most expensive pastime you could pick from a long list of regular hobbies that British people partake in. But there are some other essentials...
If you are looking to get into road cycling and you’re not sure what you need to get started, we’ve listed some of the key things you might want to consider. Top of the list is a bike, obviously, but beyond that, you really don’t need much else - just plenty of enthusiasm and energy to turn the pedals. As you find yourself getting more into cycling, there are a few useful things that can make cycling more comfortable and enjoyable.
We’ve listed some key road cycling products in order of importance, starting with...
1. A bike
An obvious one this, but if you’re going to take up cycling of any sort, you’re going to need a bike. Now is a really good time to buy a new road bike, there is a lot of choice at a huge range of prices, and the quality of bikes across the board is really good.
Sure, you can easily drop £10,000 on a Tour de France replica, but there are lots of bargains to be had for under £500 if you don't want to spend too much.
Read more: The Best Road Bike Bargains for under £500
Bikes come in many guises, this guide gives a good overview of the different types of road bike available on the market.
Read more: Beginner's guide to bike types
And if you're not sure where to start with buying a road bike, let us guide you to making the right decision, with this helpful guide.
Read more: Buying your first road bike — everything you need to know
2. Padded shorts
If you’re just planning on very short cycle rides, to the office or college, for example, you can get by just fine with regular clothes. There’s no need to wear anything special.
If you want to get into road cycling properly and tackle some longer distances, perhaps even enter a sportive or join your local club, a really good investment is a pair of padded shorts. Your bum will thank you.
They can be worn on their own, or concealed under baggy shorts if you prefer, and they provide a thin padding that provides a bit of cushioning against the saddle, and can substantially improve comfort on longer rides. Just remember, no underwear under padded shorts.
Read more: Cycling shorts — everything you need to know
You can spend anything from about £40 to over £300, so there really is something for all budgets. Here’s our buyer’s guide
Read more: Best cycling bib shorts — your buyer’s guide & 9 great choices
Read more: Best cheap cycling shorts
3. Cycling jersey
A cotton t-shirt might be just fine for shorter rides, but they’re not really designed for the demands of a longer cycle ride.
A cycling-specific jersey is made from a fabric designed to keep you cool in the heat, and keep you dry when you break a sweat. They also have a long zip for ventilation, and three rear pockets for carrying food and other supplies that you might need on longer trips.
Cycling jerseys also come in many varieties designed for different conditions, from cold weather to hot weather jerseys, and can be worn with other clothing accessories like arm warmers and gilets.
You can pay anything from £5 to £130 for a jersey, here’s our buyer’s guide.
Read more: Buyer's guide to summer cycling jerseys — plus 14 of the best
4. Water bottle and bottle cage
Cycling can be thirsty work, especially in the summer heat, so keeping hydrated on longer rides is of paramount importance. Most road bikes have bolts on the frame (down tube and seat tube) that allow you to fit a special bottle cage into which a cycling bottle can be fitted.
You can stick a bottle of Coke or Lucozade in a jersey pocket or even a bottle cage, but the former isn’t very comfortable and the latter isn't the most secure. A cycling water bottle can also be reused hundreds of times, is easy to clean and is easy to drink from on the move.
5. Pump, spare tube, basic tools and chain oil
There are two things that any cyclist embarking on a ride really shouldn’t leave home without, and that’s a spare inner tube and pump. Nobody plans to puncture, but they do happen from time to time, so it’s worth being prepared so you don’t have to phone home for a lift.
A local bike shop will help you choose the right size spare inner tube (or you can read our guide below), and a pump doesn’t have to cost a lost. You can carry both in a jersey pocket or backpack, or better still is to stash the inner tube in a saddle bag, and mount the pump to the frame with the often supplied brackets.
Read more: How to repair a punctured inner tube
Read more: Video: Greg LeMond shows how to quickly change an inner tube
Another thing you might want to consider is a multitool. Multitools are the cyclist's equivalent of a Swiss Army knife, with a range of tool bits that can be used to make adjustments to the bike, such as raising or lowering the saddle height or tweaking the gears.
If you are really getting into cycling and doing regular rides, you’ll want to keep the chain well oiled so the gears work smoothly and quietly. Chain oil, or lube as it’s commonly called, is available from any good bike shop and a small bottle lasts a long time and doesn’t cost much.
Read more: How to clean and lube your bike's chain
Read more: The best multi tools — get the right bits to fix your bike's bits
6. Computer
Because everyone wants to know how fast and far they’ve cycled, don’t they?
This isn’t an essential product at all, but as any cyclist knows all too well, the most likely question you get from friends, a partner or family after a ride is how far did you ride and how fast did you pedal? And if you are new to cycling, it’s fun to track your distance of a ride and use that to measure your progress as you get into road cycling.
Cycle computers can also show you how fast you’ve ridden, your average and max speeds, how much climbing you’ve done, and other measurements like cadence and heart rate. And as this guide below shows, they don't have to cost a fortune.
You can use a smartphone to record your ride using one of the many available apps, and this is another option, but a small dedicated computer fitted to your bike will cope with rain and hte battery will last a very long time. More expensive computers use GPS and can be plugged into a computer to download all the data.
Read more: Cycle computers — everything you need to know
And yes, we thought about including a helmet in this list, but as it’s not law to wear a helmet when cycling, we feel it’s up your own discretion whether you choose to wear a lid. If you feel safer wearing a helmet then go for it. Good cycling helmets can be bought for as little as £20, just make sure they comply with European standards, to look for certification stickers inside the helmet .
Read more: Best cheap cycling helmets
Is there anything we’ve missed? Let's hear your suggestions in the comment section.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
- brooksby 5 min 49 sec ago
Or, as quiff stated earlier: https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/road-positioning-cycling-explained
- Miller 12 min 27 sec ago
I was one of the sportive riders that Saturday at Paris-Roubaix. I was neither angry nor muttering; I bloody loved it. One of my best days out on...
- OldRidgeback 29 min 33 sec ago
Not better at all actually. It's just as dangerous. There is plenty of research into it. TRL has abstracts of numerous papers ont he topic on its...
- stonojnr 30 min 49 sec ago
Assuming alot of that historical loss is accounting losses....
- stonojnr 39 min 57 sec ago
Looks more like a tram, than a train.
- hawkinspeter 45 min 47 sec ago
Yeah, I can't find any authoritative studies from a quick search. Anecdotally, EV owners are wearing through tyres quicker than with ICE vehicles...
- Rendel Harris 59 min 38 sec ago
If you're interested, Westbrook Cycles have them down to £140 already, albeit in a very limited range of sizes.
- Freddy56 1 hour 25 min ago
Dont think "cheap" is the correct word. The correct price, non rip off. I've 'expensive LeCol, Rapha and PNS (bought for me) jerseys and the...
- David9694 3 hours 13 min ago
Quite the car-dominated main page in the Hereford Times today ...
- ike2112 10 hours 23 min ago
So that 2nd article is about the rantings of people in Bury - home of the Yates twins. Proud of their professional cyclist local heroes? Wanting to...
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127 comments
Up to 12mph, and bear in mind that wearing a helmet means that drivers will pass you closer and you'll have more collisions.
I doubt most will even notice.
I doubt most will even notice.
And it turns into a helmet debate........
Oh, no it doesn't
I saw a guy in hospital with life threatening head injuries. He collided head-on with another cyclist on a cycle path. One of them was not wearing helmet. Now, try to guess which one was in hospital, one with helmet or without?
For me it is simple, old fashioned, common sense to wear helmet.
Keep the cool stories coming.
Bro.
would have thought it better that they were wearing spectacles to deal with their shortsightejdness then they would never have hit each other.
edit- and the practise of better road craft as well.
Yes, let's ignore statistics and science and instead concentrate on one specific anecdote.
Honestly, it's like we never left the dark ages with the complete lack of scientific reasoning in a lot of people. There's been plenty of people investigating how helmets perform in the real world and even with a lot of invested parties (e.g. helmet manufacturers), we've got no clear evidence that bike helmets provide a net gain in safety.
One thing that is proven about helmets, however, is that forcing people to wear them results in some people not wanting to cycle.
(For the record, I choose to wear a bike helmet - it's like a good luck charm).
I think it would be equally interesting to ask who caused the collision - the one with the helmet or the one without. It's not unimagineable that if neither had been wearing a helmet that neither would have been injured, given the mechanism of risk compensation that some have argued (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation). However, this is all anecdote. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence)
When I was at school a kid got a pretty serious head injury when a car mounted the kerb and hit him. No doubt he'd have been better off wearing a helmet.
Simple, old fashioned common sense to wear a helmet when walking anywhere. Right?
In that case I'll stop wearing one, as simple common sense has been frequently shown to be wrong.
Why is that "common sense" so often is the same thing as "what I believe"?
"6. Computer"
Nope Hate to say it but Strava. Keep the numbers in your pocket and worry about the riding. You don't need to see them and they do nothing to make your ride any better. Plus, when you get back from your ride, it's like opening a surprise (or disapointment!!).
Here is an article from the British Medical Journal by Ben Goldacre, Wellcome research fellow in epedemiology and David Spiegelhalter, Winton professor for the public understanding of risk.
http://www.badscience.net/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2013-12-13-17.12.05.png
After looking at research which purports to show that helmets are effective, and population level studies which do not show any reduction in cyclist casualty rates they conclude:
"In any case, the current uncertainty about any benefits from helmet promotion or wearing is unlikely to be reduced by further research. Equally, we can be certain that helmets will continue to be debated, and at length. The enduring popularity of helmets as a proposed major intervention for increased road safety may lie not in their direct benefits- which seem too modest to capture compared with other strategies- but more with the cultural, psychological and political aspects of popular debate around risk."
I think that nails it. The rest of the article is well worth reading for the cogent way it makes its points.
What do they know about anything? Academics. I had a friend stuck in his new speedplays fall off onto his US$400 helmet and he would have been dead if he didn't have it on.
Haha, good one. Oh wait, that was a joke, wasn't it?
I think so, but when some one thinks that talking about hitting people on the head with bricks is a good argument for helmets it gets hard to tell.
Seems on a par with ghe UK/EU debate where one side quotes Martin Lewis out of context and the other side equates the EU with Napoleon and Hitler.
Seems on a par with ghe UK/EU debate where one side quotes Martin Lewis out of context and the other side equates the EU with Napoleon and Hitler.[/quote]
I think that is unfair.
I think taht this unfair.
The fact remains that the evidence is mixed; to wear, or not to wear, and expectations of what wearing one would do for you in a very specific accident... it's a matter of faith.
But allow me to play devil's advocate for a sec... The message that you're safer with a helmet, however, is pushed by cycling bodies, clubs, events, governments/politicians and manufacturers and retailers - who charge for them. That's manufacturers and retailers (let's refer to them as the 'industry') making money from selling personal protective equipment that doesn't have much evidence to support how protective it is.
Is the above claim outlandish?
Does it really take a tinfoil hatter to summarise it as a bit of an 'industry scam'?
Particularly, as you say, as there is some evidence that helmet wearing makes cycling appear dangerous and that perception puts people off doing it, and also that drivers give helmet wearers less room.
..except where they don't of course
http://drianwalker.com/overtaking/
Hmm most
construcitve commentsno, no... mostenlightening comments.. no.. still not right... I read with an open mind and am delighted to see such welcoming construtive comments to this article aimed at ou new brothers and sisters of the saddle.No still not right... can someone help me I'm feeling a little unfundamented, it's my own fault probably down to my unfettered helmet useage. Was it a full moon last night?
Great stuff guys!
As an Englishman with a thousand years of Angelfolc blood coursing through my veins I will not partake in helmet debates...
Any helmet or non-helmet wearers come near my kids I swear I'll do time!
I think we may have got a bit distracted by all this Helmet stuff.
The first thing a new cyclist needs to know is The Rules.
http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/
it's mostly so car drivers don't scream at you to get a helmet, and also for when you hit a pothole going 50mph downhill.
Here's a helmet for babies. To wear in the house:
http://www.thudguard.com/
How on earth did the human race get this far without it? Incredible.
I wonder if all the pro helmet evangelists here, preach their stuff on car forums as well.
After all even with all the safety devices/systems the number of head injuries of car occupants is much higher than that of cyclists.
I hope their kids wear a helmet as well when travelling in a car... and when they climb anything... and when they play on a playground... and in a bath/shower...
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