Tips

Hey Jay. To start...do you have a bike? That's an important part. If not, let us all know, as I'm sure everyone has some good tips with respect to buying the right bike for you. Also, sorry, I can't get this damned thing to acknowledge a line break...dammit.

As for stuff, it really depends on what kind of riding you do. For this post, I will assume just some cross country trail riding, and perhaps some back country longer trips.

The first thing to know is that the points of contact from your body to your bike should be taken care of. This means gloves on your hands, and shoes on your feet. If you are running clipless pedals (which is a strange name, because clipless pedals are the ones you clip yourself into), then get a good pair of shoes. You can start with just an $80 pair, until you figure out if being clipped in is right for you. If you're running flat pedals, then any flat bottomed shoe should do. I have had friends use running shoes with the fancy arch support and torsion bar, and they had a really hard time staying on their pedals. A nice pair of flat airwalks, vans should work fine, but if you want something designed for it, then 661 makes some sweet shoes.
As for gloves. this is a preference. I prefer really thin gloves. Protects from scratches, keeps the sweat from making the grips feel like a greased pig, and keeps your hands a little cooler in the warm weather. They also have some thicker ones with a lot of palm padding, which is nice, but some feel that it takes away from the "feel" of the bike. I also like full fingered gloves, but again, this is a preference thing. You should look at spending from $18 to $40 on gloves, depending on what you want.

With those covered, get yourself a helmet. The only times I fall are when I don't think I've going to fall. Doesn't matter if you're out on a leisurely trail ride, a tree will crack your noodle either way. Again, this is a choice thing, and depends on what type of riding you want to do. Something with a lot of vents is good for long rides.

Shirt: Get a proper riding shirt. They are synthetic, will breathe, keep you cool/warm, and won't weigh 20lbs when soaked in sweat.

Shorts: Again, some proper riding shorts would be nice here. Some come with built in padding (And no, I'm not talking about tights here). You can get some really nice riding shorts, like Fox's High Frequency, that have built in padding to reduce baboon a$s. It's amazing how much it helps. Another benefit of proper shorts, or, if you are going to use other kinds of shorts, make sure they hug your junk. hehe. I mean that they aren't baggy, and the crotch doesn't hang down to your knees. You will have to move around and get behind the seat, and I've seen someone go over the bars because they couldn't get back because their basketball shorts go snagged.

I think that pretty much covers the wardrobe, now on to kit.

Water bottle. Cheap. Very important. I think they say you should have between 500ml to 1litre of water per hour of riding to avoid dehydration. If you're going on long rides, get a hydration pack.

I like the hydration pack myself, because it can carry all the other essentials, like:
Spare Tube, Hand pump/inflator, tire levers, multi-tool (designed for bikes. i.e. Topeak).
There are more things that you may need out there, but those are the FOR SURE ones that I can think of. For longer rides, you want to look at spare spokes, chain links, cables...but for now, those are what you may want to look at.

Jay, hopefully this doesn't overwhelm you, and of course, you don't need all these things for your first ride, these are things that I picked up over time, because although it's an amazing sport, it's not always cheap.

Hopefully this helps.

Brandon

I'm not sure I can go beyond this! Great post Brandon!

Walker T

Off the road, on the mind...