Hello friends my spouse and I are moving to a relatively bikeable town but neither of us currently own bicycles (on account of not wanting to die on a rural highway). I know nothing about bicycles except for how to ride one.
Anyone have advice on what we should be looking for for bikes?
Details:
Spouse will be biking to work most days, about 15 minutes. They have some disability issues though and I think an e-bike would be really helpful for them to make the ride easier.
I will be driving a long distance if and when I get a job, but would still like a bike for around town, on weekends, running small errands etc. Grocery store is about 10 minutes biking, it would be nice to do a good amount of grocery shopping on bike. Hopefully the next place we move I’ll be able to bike to work, in which case I’ll definitely want an E-Bike because I’m the sweatiest person alive, so would ideally want something I could retrofit to an E-Bike if that’s a thing you can do?
If it’s not too hot out, you won’t sweat as much if you don’t push yourself. The wind drag you feel is proportional to your speed squared, so doubling your speed quadruples the wind resistance, so biking faster is much more total work to get to your destination. Bike half as fast and it will feel like sitting on a porch with a breeze.