Yey I'm buying a bike for my birthday! I've been wanting a bike for so long but I haven't ridden one since I was a teenager. I don't even know if I still know how to lol!

So I live in a city. There are parks nearby but this bike will be mainly for exercise and running errands in my neighborhood. As a kid I had a beach cruiser. What kind of bike should I be looking for, and how much do they cost? Any info on bike lingo before I visit a bike shop will be helpful.

Is your city flat(ish)? Because I live in a very flat part of the world and everyone (more or less) has at least one bike just to get around.

Because there are hardly any hills we have bikes where you sit up straight whilst riding them instead of being hunched over like you're killing yourself on a French mountainside or something.

Something a bit like the photo I've attached. I ruthlessly pinched that photo from this site.

If your terrain is favourable these bikes are great. You can enjoy the countryside, the weather, wave hi to friends you pass on the street, all that stuff.

That's a nice bike but there are some hills in my area. I wish it was flat and it mostly is but there are hills

If there is a chance of craters or uneven stretches on the roads you are using, look for a mountain bike with suspension and road tyres. I have also commuted on a touring bike in the past. I now only own a carbon road bike. This is definitely not practical for city roads. If I am sure I do not anymore look like a whale on it, I will use it again for weekend tours. My dream commuting bike would be an electric assist bike. They are hugely popular in Europe. I know, less calories burned, but fast and save the shower at the end. And you can turn off the engine if you want.

I've done a road bike on paths and roads even some gravel paths (not recommended). If you are doing gravel paths/rocky/dirty paths, you'll want a hybrid. If you are doing roads/trails, you'll want a road bikes. Road bikes tend to be more expensive but they can do hills. A beach cruiser cannot. A hybrid bike will be a bit slower than a road bike and not as good at hills but different. Again a hybrid has more versatility with terrain.

Great info thanks ladies! Do road bikes have skinny tires? And mountain bikes has thick tires?

Yup, mountain bikes have thick, nubby tires. Hybrids have a medium thickness tire with some nubbiness. Road bikes have the thinnest tires. I wouldn't get a mountain bike unless you were doing rough dirt trails exclusively. I think entry level road bikes are around $500, entry level hybrids would be a little less.

I'm going for a Triumph Bonneville SE. About $5k. Good for 125.

Ok I'm not spending 5k on a bike, nor am I spending 500. I was hoping for under 300. Is it really that expensive??

My husband just got this one: http://www.target.com/p/schwinn-men-...rm=hybrid+bike

He loves it! It is a hybrid that is designed for both trails and roads. Our area has a lot of pot holes, bumps, some hills, and he occasionally has to ride on grass. He rides 14 miles one way to work nearly every day, plus he does errands on it. It has medium width tires, some tread but not too knobby. It is pretty light, but handles uneven terrain well. It also has a decent shock system, which you want if you have gravelly/uneven ground. It was $250. Our budget was $300, so we were able to get him headlights (he sometimes rides in the early morning before sunrise), horn, and a tool kit and still were within our budget. I think there is a women's version, too. We had a mountain bike before and he hated it for riding around town.

People that spend $5k are generally using it for racing or are just overall bike enthusiasts. If $500 is over your budget, then I wouldn't even look at road bikes and concentrate on a hybrid. Bike shops in your area should have a decent hybrid for $300. I would recommend going to a bike shop because they can help size you and let you test it out.

You get what you pay for ... I would agree with nelie to go for a hybrid and definitely shop at a specialty bike store... At this time of year they have great sales...

BTW, my husband has been riding that bike 28 miles nearly daily for a while now and it has held up perfectly well. We had to make very few adjustments (this depends on who put it together though). I have never had issues with buying cheap walmart or target bikes. Of course, they won't last as long as a 5k bike (which is more than both of our cars put together!), and I wouldn't recommend it for a hardcore cyclist/racer. But for riding around town doing errands and other casual biking, they have always been perfectly fine. It's pretty easy to tell the cheaply put together bikes from the decent ones. I would recommend having a bike shop put it together or adjust it for you if you are unsure of what a well-put together bike looks and feels like. They will do this for a small fee (usually around $50).

I don't think there is anything wrong with Target bicycles, but I'd prefer to try out multiple bikes before buying which bike shops will let you do. The last bike I bought, they told me to go ride a couple miles and come back to see if I was sure I wanted to buy it. Granted, it did cost over $2k but my first bike which was much cheaper gave me a lot of leeway in testing as well. Larger bikes shops on weekends, you usually see multiple people out near the bike shop testing bikes. Also, bike shops in my area (DC) tend to do free tuneups for life if you buy from there so if your bike gets a little gritty, they'll clean the chains, check the tires, check adjustment, add pressure, etc, answer any questions about issues. And again, I'd expect to be able to buy something in the $300 hybrid range at a bike shop. And like Ilene said, this is a great time of year to buy a bike because the 2014 models will be coming out and the bike shops will want to move their 2013 models out. I bought my first bike for half off the original price due to it being a 2 yr old model.

That sounds good to me!