About seven years ago, when my daughter was an infant, I resolved to get myself back into good enough shape to keep up with her. I had just hit forty, and though I’d been a very fit marathon runner once upon a time, it had been nearly a decade since I’d done any serious training. To jump-start things, I bought an old clunker of a bike for $5 at a garage sale and started riding a little.
At the time, I figured I would eventually drop the cycling for running, but it never happened. Instead, I got hooked on pedaling a bike—an activity that seemed far more forgiving on my middle-aged joints and allowed me to cover a great deal more distance than running, but quickly improved my cardiovascular health and helped me drop a few pounds.
As strong as my attraction to cycling was, I found the notion of upgrading my equipment and learning more skills—in effect, developing as a cyclist—extremely intimidating. The bike shops were filled with all sorts of new, high-tech equipment, sold by kids half my age and twice as fit. I wanted a good, comfortable and, what the hell, fast bike, but I didn’t want to be patronized by the person selling it to me.
Fortunately, I met Joe Mai early in the process.
Joe is an important figure in the Valley’s cycling scene, not just because he’s a great rider and a great bike mechanic who runs a great bike shop in Haydenville. Joe is also an ambassador for cycling, a person who has dedicated a lot of his time and spent a lot of his own money to promote the sport, to get kids involved and to help people at all levels to improve their performance and enhance their enjoyment on the bike.
The connection between athlete and machine is paramount in cycling, and Joe Mai is an expert at getting that connection dialed in. He also helps connect new riders—and duffers like me—to what is a vibrant cycling community in the Pioneer Valley.
I recently dropped by Joe’s Garage, his popular shop on South Main Street in Haydenville.
The phrase ‘just like riding a bike’ implies that riding is easy—that once you learn, you never forget. It’s not that easy. I just started doing some mountain biking and it’s hard. Fun, but hard. Where should novices go to get started and pick up some skills?
Safety Village (a miniature replica of Northampton, complete with streets and sidewalks, used by the city’s recreation department to teach kids about traffic and pedestrian safety).
River Road in Hatfield is a great place to go: a nice flat road—perfect for someone just starting out.
Cycling clubs are great. The bigger the club, the better for novices, because you’re more likely to find other riders at your fitness level to ride with.
Ride Noho (ridenoho.com) runs bicycle touring and training camps from late May through mid-October. They’re great. They run a really good women’s camp and a really good “my-first-road-bike” camp.
What are your favorite rides in the Valley?
The Shelburne Falls Loop, otherwise known as the Cosby Loop, because it goes by Bill Cosby’s house. And the Brattleboro Century: Northampton to Brattleboro, out to Hinsdale and back Route 63 into the Northampton area.
You can learn some great routes by joining a group ride through one of the clubs. Rubel Bike Maps puts out a great Western Mass Bike Map. And it’s fun to just go out and explore.
What general advice do you have for people who want to buy a bike?
Be flexible with your price point—give or take a couple of hundred dollars is always good, particularly if you’re just starting to look.
Always test a bike. Try a few and compare how they feel to you. If you haven’t ridden in a while and you try some new bikes, you’ll be surprised how good they are. The technology keeps improving at all price points; new, expensive improvements soon become standard in even less expensive bikes. A $500 bike is so much better today than a $500 bike was ten years ago.
Try to develop a relationship with your bike shop. They’re experts; your neighbor who just bought a bike probably isn’t.
And don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
Hybrids: Best of both worlds or stuck in the middle?
A little bit caught in the middle. There are a lot of different categories now, bikes for different uses on a variety of terrain. If you’re trying to do eight or nine things with one bike, it’s not going to work out very well. You need to figure out what 80 or 90 percent of your riding is going to be.
Is a hybrid OK for mountain biking?
No. If your idea of mountain is dirt roads—anything you wouldn’t mind driving your car on—then fine, but hybrids aren’t meant for off-road.
How much should someone expect to pay for a good bike?
If you haven’t had a bike in 20 years, $500 is going to give you a lot. If you get into it, start riding a lot and want a new bike, $1,500 to $2,000 is the range that will start to get you excited.
If I have a bike, what accessories do I really need? What add-ons or upgrades?
A good helmet. That’s very important.
Clothing for seasonal comfort. You can ride year round with the right clothing.
If you’re looking to upgrade, look at your tires: that’s what connects you to the road. Good tires make a big difference.
Clipless shoes and pedals improve efficiency 33 percent.
And cycling computers (measuring time, distance, speed, cadence, etc.) are nice to have. Some of the new GPS-enabled ones are kind of fun.
