I've never tried "selling" someone on a bike for weight loss, but if I was selling something for weight loss it would be a bike:
T
The easier you ride, the more fat vs. glycogen you burn. If I commute at "recovery pace" (barely letting my legs fall on the pedals/my wife's pace) I burn 450 calories riding per day.

So basically I burn an extra 350 fat calories for doing something easy, instead of something else easy.

Many Canadians too. I'm currently participating in our office "Biggest Loser" contest. It's incredible to see the emails flying around about the latest diet or cleanse or "boot camp weekend." Sure, these folks weigh in on Monday and wow, they lost 5 pounds that week! However, the following week the loss is only 1 pound, followed by a gain of 1 or 2 the next. I'm consistently losing 2-3 pounds each week and I always get asked what I'm doing. When I answer "eat less and better, and exercise" I get the blank stare and a head shake. Nobody likes that answer because it means they have to work at it and they can't eat whatever they want to. There is no magic bullet. It's a lifestyle change, not a cleanse or a boot camp.

Many people buy a cheap bike in a effort to start exercising and lose weight. But I think that, deep down inside, they know they probably won't stick with it and the cost of that cheap bike won't hurt too much when they abandon it. "It's too hard", "My butt hurts" - easy excuses when you can just try another cleanse or take another pill or listen to Dr. Oz's next great weight lost scheme.

Cheers!
K

It's pretty easy to get a loan for a car with a cosigner. A lot harder to get a loan for a Bianchi bicycle. You got me thinking, how many Americans own their own vehicles free and clear? I can't seem to find the statistic anywhere. I bet it's WAY less than 40%.

Good discussion. Sorry I was late to the party. I have conversations like this with non bike people too often. Very frustrating that people can accept spending thousands , or tens of thousands for hunting, fishing, camping, golf or boating gear that gets used a couple of times a year, folks balk at $1,500 for a bike that will give the owner decades of service and fun. While there is always cool new gear every year, once an Ogre user has the basic stuff (helmet, pump, shorts, etc,,,) the annual cost of owning an Ogre is fairly low. Maybe an occasional new tube, brake pad, tire or chain, gloves or shorts, but that is about it for 10 or 15 years. No costly storage, or club fees pretty much ever.

OP, you gave good, solid advice in recommending the Surly Ogre, and less expensive options, like entry level hybrids and used bikes. I hate the Wal Mart mentality. A $1,600 Ogre is a fine bicycle that will last a decade or more and unless something disastrous happens, can be rebuilt when the components wear out (and that would be after years of heavy use or abuse.). I still have a 1997 Bianchi hybrid I bought from a LBS. Nothing high end. Paid $400 for it. Some years I rode it almost daily. Other years not so much as I bought and rode other bikes over the years. I even lent it to my niece one year and she used it as a commuter for 6 months. I took it to the bike shop last year fearing the worst, but to my surprise, all it needed was new brake pads, chain and cassette. I replaced tires about 5 years ago, and they are still, according to the bike shop, still good for another season at least. $100 bucks or so and it is good as new. And a Surly Ogre is a much better bike than my old Bianchi hybrid.

A WalMart bike is a disposable POC that will most likely sit in a garage unused until the owner donates it or throws it away. But perhaps the Ogre was too much bike for your friend, who may want something to ride, maybe 150 to 200 Miles a season (talking your occasional recreational rider, riding once a week or less, always no more than 7 or 8 Miles at a slow pace, and only when it isn't too hot or too cold). Your basic $500 hybrid is still better than the Wal Mart junk, though at that point, we are not talking about cycling for weight loss anymore.

My takeaway from the discussion and what I will emphasize in the future is, you don't need to be a Tour De France hopeful to spend $1,000 or more on a bike.

This is very true and a bike being a very efficient machine there are better ways of gaining fitness or weight loss.

It is sad, but the majority of new, cheap bikes are bought on impulse and used only once or twice. The Bike charity I set up had up to 250 bikes per week donated during the summer and the vast majority were barely used.

Please tell us more. I am very interested in the story. What was your motivation? What were its aims and outcomes?

i was was unaware there is a finite amount of miles allowed to be pedaled. How do I apply for another allotment?

You have to contact the National Registry of Bicycle Riding and request your Card and they will issue you your 1 year allotment based on the number of applicants. I hope you didn't want to ride a bike this year since registry has been closed since October of 2013...

I don't usually take offense to such arguments about cost of equipment among sports. When it comes down to it some a lot of people have tunnel vision in America about bicycles being anything but a "fun" activity rather then a mode of transportation. Its also a trickle down effect that starts from the top say like the road division that starts with roads designed with a 3 or more foot median on all roads. Signage, commercials, promotion from local business. If these don't happen mentalities don't change no matter how many of us riders are out there. But I do find the more I ride and the more I show people how healthy you can be with as little as a hundred miles a week riding the more they start to listen.....

Awww, SNAP....

I think that when we have all been in the cycling lifestyle for a while we get used to $400 being closer to what we pay for wheels than for bikes. But, we sometimes forget that the $300-$400 bike from the LBS will do a marvelous job for the first year or two for most riders. I just switched my primary rider from a $330 Giant Sedona I bought 10 years ago to a newer Trek 7.3 FX I bought used for a little less than that, then upgraded with $400 worth of wheels and tires, plus other upgrades that added another $100 or so to the bike...

We need to remember that to a beginner, they won't really feel the difference between a $300 bike and a $3,000 bike as much as the better feeling after actually riding the bike for a few months. While some people feel the need for the $3,000 bike sooner than others, the $300 price to start is far more palatable to the non-addicted. We should possibly learn a lesson from drug dealers in trying to spread our addiction... "The first one is free (or cheap) the next one will cost you."

I disagree. If he is truly running and on the heavy side then average replacement of running shoes is every three or four months. Considering a good running shoe is close to $100 nowadays that's $300 to $400 in shoes a year. That initial outlay of $500 to $600 for an entry level bike now doesn't seem so bad.

Well, he probably won't spend anywhere near $100 on running shoes, he probably won't replace them every 3 months and he probably already has shoes he can run in. Call it a sunk cost, and it won't trigger his "OMG $500 for a bike" gag reflex either.

And he won't do any of that.

He's looking for a way to feel better about the way he currently lives, not actually change it. The bike would be nothing more then a talisman.
Buy a bike, put it in the garage... There he did something for his health, he bought a bike. Pass the beer and pork rinds. Now let's go "fishin" and get plastered...

He just remembers that the top of the line Sting Rays of his childhood cost $55 and the best "English Racers" were $75 in the Sears Christmas Wish Book. Things have changed in 50 years. If he is truly interested he'll start checking around and then he'll get the bug and become a bike snob in no time flat.


If you had told him, "Forget it. You can't afford it.", he'd have a bike by now, and probably a better one than you.

As it should be. Wal-Mart buys a gazillion at a time and probably pays considerably less than $100 each. Your LBS most likely buys a dozen of one model at the most and their markup wouldn't keep the shop open if there weren't for accessories to sell too. Comparing Wal-Mart to your LBS is like comparing apples to shrimp boats! I feel the same way about my LBS as I do about my LGS, we're damned lucky to have one in town!

I've owned mine free and clear since 1996! My bike I've owned free and clear since last February!

One of the main aims of the charity was to encourage the use of cycling and to promote a "Greener" way of life. The idea being to refurbish donated bikes which would then be sold at a price affordable by those who couldn't afford a new bike. The refurbishment and recycling would be done by skilled volunteers but we would also offer training places to people with different types of disability and to the long-term unemployed.
We were aided in this by start-up money gifted by a national charity and this allowed us to rent premises and establish a fully-equipped workshop.
We established a contract with the regional authority which gave us all the bikes left at their recycling centres and did the same with the Police service which gave us all bikes recovered from being stolen and abandoned. As mentioned, this amounted to around 250 bikes per week in the summer months.
We also ran bike-maintenance classes and staged classes at various schools for pupils and parents.
The whole thing went very well until I suffered a stroke while working in the workshop and then a year later had a heart attack which meant I could no longer continue. Since that time the project changed from being a registered charity to more that of a social enterprise and seems to be fighting for survival. A great pity as it was a very worth-while enterprise.

I am really sorry to read about your stroke and heart attack. I hope that you are still reasonably active and still riding. Best wishes.

Yes, quite often these sorts of organisations need someone who is the lynchpin and when something happens to that person, it falls apart. It's a shame it has gone from being a registered charity to a social enterprise and the baggage that involves.

I rode an old schwinn for the first year...

My wife at the time had a cardiac when I bought my first bike for $800, a specialized sequoia... I wore it out after a season of riding.

My now wife encouraged me to buy the Madone which has 6K miles on it.

The cost of the bike should match the interest of the rider. No sense in spending a lot of money on something that you may not get full enjoyment from.

You should be able to get a starter road bike for under a 1000, and probably half of that on Craigs List.

A supportive spouse helps as well. But you have to have the commitment.