I need to buy a bicycle, and I have less than £100 to do it with.
Not hard, I thought. Argos has a bike for about £80. That’ll do, right?
According to the internet, no. No it certainly wouldn’t do, and I’d be mad or stupid to try it.
Everywhere I looked, trying to find advice for what to do with my small budget, I read the same thing over and over again. The Argos bike wasn’t really a bicycle, apparently, it, and anything else in that price range was more of a bicycle shaped object. If I bought it, I’d regret it in an instant. The wheels would fly off going downhill. I’d never make it up the hill coming out of my town. It would crumple and break and I’d end up under a lorry on my very first trip. I’d never get into cycling with one of those.
The advice seemed to be to raise my budget by at least £300.
There were no end of reasons why I should apparently do this. The bikes would be made to not only be ridden, but to last. I’d enjoy myself and ride more. I’d be able to tackle the giant hill I was dreading. Really, having a budget under £300 was stupid, and under £100 was laughable.
I’m sure they all had a point. I’m sure expensive bikes are wonderful, and cheap ones are comparatively terrible.
But here’s the thing – my budget isn’t low because I’m a cheapskate. My budget isn’t low because I don’t think a bicycle is important enough for me to spend money on it.
My budget is £100 because I am an unemployed graduate, who had to move back with my parents because I couldn’t find a job. My budget is £100 because that is how much of my deposit I got back off my previous landlady after paying off the bills I owed. My reason for buying a bicycle is because I simply can’t afford to spend £5.50 for a single to Cardiff on the bus every time I want to see my boyfriend, and £5.50 back the next day.
Thank you, bicycle blogs and articles, for your well meaning advice. However, I’m sure you’ll understand when I tell you no. No, I cannot spend £400 on a bicycle. No, it’s not because I’m a newbie who doesn’t understand quality. It’s because I physically don’t have the money in my account to do it.
Plus, how important is it really?
When I was a child, I didn’t ride around thinking about ride quality, and the size of tyres or how many gears my Raleigh had. I didn’t care about any of that stuff. All I cared about was that I had a bike called Max who I would ride around on and pretend was a pony. I doubt my parents spent more than £50 on him.
Of course, the obvious answer, and compromise, is to buy a bicycle second hand. It’s very hard to do in ‘real life’ here it seems, but the internet has some ideas. And so much choice!
Living near the stolen bike capital of the UK has some perks I suppose!
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| Max, my 'pony' |
