What clothing etc to get me started?

ragged1100

Hi

What would you recommend a beginner buys to get them started clothing wise, including shoes? I've been looking at waterproof over trousers, what do you wear underneath? Does anyone know a company that makes them in short (ie 29") lengths for 36-38" waists? It's gonna be a fair few months before I will be the 'standard' 28" waist you seem to need to be to get 29" leg trousers!!

Anyway, any advice greatly recieved, I will be doing mostly trail stuff, not DH.

Cheers

Ragged

mellex

This time of year I have three absolute musts.

1 - Good base layer. Helps to keep you warm and gets the sweat away from your body.

2 - Gloves. No point having good brakes and fingers so cold you can't pull the lever.

3 - thermal & waterproof socks.

When you say shoes, do you mean clip-ins (SPDs) or trainers/boots?

After that I would get yourself a midrange (£60 - £80) waterproof jacket.

GHill

Some sort of padded liner is essential IMO, either built in to shorts or as stand alone boxer-shorts.

Banned!

waterproof trousers, unless they are goretex or similar, are horrible for riding in. they make you sweat like a pedo in a playground. plus they make a horrible noise. and tear easy.and have no pockets. and make you look like a council worker.

I almost always wear cut off combats as they dry quickly, are cheap, have plenty of pockets, dont make a horrible noise and dont make me look like a binman.and i get plenty of ventilation and theres no chance of them getting caught in the chainwheels.

missmarple

I wear Madison Baggy Shorts all year round, they have a lycra underlayer to keep you warm - your legs soon warm up.

If you want toasty hands I recommed Altura Airstreams and for Shoes I recommend the Shimano SPD range.

Rich9

A good pair of padded shorts is a must. Nothing worse than a sore jacksie :oops:

Instead of full-on waterproof jacket, i have a Polaris Aqualite jacket over my jersey. It was only £35 and folds up quite small to fit in my backpack

ride_whenever

1. Padded shorts
2. Gloves and socks (waterproof, i'm fond of sealskinz)
3. Waterproof outer layer (I have endura gridlock trousers and a lightweight gore-tex jacket)
4. wicking lycra base-layer (really warm and you can wear other stuff over the top if the tight look isn't your thing...)

As for shoes, depends whether you want clip in ones or not.

If you want clip ins, try the specialised BG sport shoes (these must be done by lbs as they need to be tried for fit obv.) and shimano M540 pedals.

If not, decent flat pedals and some decent shoes. Wellgo MG-1 from ebay, excellent pedals, for shoes look at what your LBS has. Or you can just use trainers. I personally use gore-tex merrels as they're waterproof.

ragged1100

mellex wrote:

This time of year I have three absolute musts.

1 - Good base layer. Helps to keep you warm and gets the sweat away from your body.

2 - Gloves. No point having good brakes and fingers so cold you can't pull the lever.

3 - thermal & waterproof socks.

When you say shoes, do you mean clip-ins (SPDs) or trainers/boots?

After that I would get yourself a midrange (£60 - £80) waterproof jacket.

For shoes, what I really want is opinions on a beginner getting clips in and recommendations one way or the other?

BTW I have a Scott Aspect 45, it has Wellgo LU 910 pedals(?)

Oh...and helmets? I have a raleigh bike helmet, 30 quid from Halfords and a TSG skate helmet, 80 quid from local skate shop, don't really wanna buy another, do you reckon these are ok, which should I use?
Cheers

Ragged

Northwind

I've never worn padded shorts, in fact I took the liners out of my Endura shorts. Don't like them, a decent saddle (Charge Spoon in my case) is all I've ever needed for a day's ride. YMMV but they're not essential. And for a beginner you probably won't be doing the epic rides that cause monkeybutt as yet anyway.

Skate helmets can be fine for cycling, my Bell Faction is more or less a skate helmet that they also market for mtb use (mine is the Tony Hawks signature model!) It'll probably be very hot in summer but OK in winter. What you're looking for is coverage more than anything else, road bike helmets are IMO less good offroad than a good skate helmet.

The essentials for XC riding for me are the waterproof and thermal socks that everyone else recommended- I wear the mid light Sealskinz with their seperate liner, a good choice I think as when it gets warm you can lose the liner. Not cheap but very good.

Also, a base layer- but don't spend much here, mine are all £10 or less, from Mountain Warehouse, JJB Sports and TK Maxx! Various Mountain Warehouse own brand, Nike and Puma kit. The needs of other athletes are pretty much the same as cyclists so why spend £30 for a cycling specific base layer? It's good to have a long sleeve and short sleeve one in the drawer.

Gloves- yes, absolutely, not wearing gloves is plain daft. I just wear my motorbike ones though the Sealskinz ones seem popular.

Shorts, I do wear bike specifics but it's not really neccesary, anything will do as long as they don't have a big seam across the crotch/arse.

Top layers... For cold riding, a cheap fleece is good. Definately no cotton!

Waterproofs... I just got a Montaine gillet from Chain Reaction which was £20, it works very well- I also havea waterproof top from Aldi but they're out of stock.

.blitz

ragged1100 wrote:

What would you recommend a beginner buys to get them started clothing wise, including shoes?

Have a poke around Aldi/Lidl - they usually have some inexpensive cycling kit that is ideal for starting off.

mellex

ragged1100 wrote:

For shoes, what I really want is opinions on a beginner getting clips in and recommendations one way or the other?

I have only just switched from platform to clip-in. Best thing I've done in ages.

As I wasn't sure how things were going to turn out when I purchased the kit I brought some cheap and cheerful Shimano M075 Cycling Shoes (£45) and a set of Shimano XT pedals (£40 sale price) from wiggle.com. Can't fault either, although the shoes aren't waterproof and they don't keep your feet warm.

Remember when buying Shimano shoes, most people find that they have to go a size up to get a good fit.

ThreeLionsBrian

If you have very small or very large feet you can get some etremely good bargains if you hunt around the online cycle sales usually.

Northwind

I wouldn't say to go to clipless pedals already, it's a big extra cost and another skill to learn... Fact is, if you're a beginner, you're not likely to get the full benefit of clipless, but you will get all of the disadvantages. And being able to get a foot down fast as you learn is a huge bonus. Once you're used to handling the bike and a bit more confident they can be great, but I think they give people enough trouble to learn even once they're more experienced. I reckon it's money best spent elsewhere, or just not spent, for now as they're far from essential.

(I can't use clips for medical reasons, and it doesn't really hold me back much on the bike so far as I can tell, but clipless can definately be an advantage- I wouldn't recommend against it, I just think it's better to take it one step at a time)

llamafarmer

I don't really have any waterproof gear at the moment as I don't tend to do huge rides at the moment and I'm always under the shelter of woodland. I have some Endura Humvee 3/4 shorts which I love - they're tough and comfortable and pretty shower/spray resistant. I also have a windproof, breathable top, which keeps me warm in most conditions.

Totally agree with Northwind about SPDs - an expensive thing to buy and they're very difficult to use to begin with, they'll be a nightmare for a novice. Later on when you're comfortable with your bike they're brilliant!

ragged1100

Thanks for all your help, in the end I got some Eudura Humvee shorts and Specialized BG TAHO shoes that I can convert to clip ins later if I want, a friend has a set of pedals he doesn't need that he'll let me have, but I'll wait a bit. Looking forward to tommorrow, going out for a long ride, dont have to be at work till 4pm!

Thanks again

Ragged