New start and new Dawes Discovery 501 i think.

weigle123

Hi all, my name is Tony and i am looking for some good advice if you all can help. So where to start, i am 40 years old and an ex smoker for some 8 weeks now, I never started smoking until my twenty's when a soccer accident in the U.S forced me back to the UK. Over the last twenty years i have let myself go put on the weight and married life. Last year i had another op on my already damaged knee and all is now good. I will get to the point now that i have told you about myself and hope the advice you can give will help me out. I have taken the opportunity of our company's cycle to work offer and after visiting our local bike shop that we have used for all our kids bikes i settled for the DAWES DISCOVERY 501 Hybrid, out of the 8 or so bikes i tried this felt like something i had as a teen and felt right. However at the weekend i went for a walk with my daughter along the river in to Oxford and was taken back by how much fun people were having on there MTB's so my question is this? do i stay with the hybrid or go for the not so pace MTB. any help you guys can give would be great.
Ps
I am 18st and not proud but know i can lose this no problem but this might have an outcome on your advice,

Regards

Marcus_C

By your post I assume you got the bike to get fit so how and where do you plan on riding it? If it's for riding off road then yes, a mountain bike would make more sense. However, if you are considering any on road rides of more than about 3 miles a mountain bike gets frustrating fairly fast. You can have fun on pretty much any sort of bike, just go for the one that's the best fit for your terrain and style.

If you can I do recommend you commute by bike, it's the best way of racking up the miles and hence the fitness. I am about to start a new commute of 12 miles each way and although your commute needn't be as long you will appreciate that that distance five times a week is well over 120miles a week. I'd need most of both days of my weekends and all week to recover doing that mileage without a commute.