Firstly, Congratulations on your decision to buy a bicycle.
When it comes to choosing the right bicycle, the first thing you'll need to ask yourself is what you plan on using your bicycle for. Are you going to use this cycle for your basic commute? Are you going to be using it primarily for fitness? Or are you looking at cycling professionally?
More often than not, this will also help estimate what distances you're going to be riding, which in turn will give you an idea of how much you should think of investing in your new bicycle.
On ChooseMyBicycle.com we've broadly broken this down into 3 categories - Commute, Leisure/Fitness and Professional. The cycles have been assigned into these categories based on the quality of components, frame, level of comfort and riding style.
It is now safe to assume that 40% of your decision making process is now complete. The next question you need to ask yourself is where you will be doing most of your riding.
Below is a table that indicates the type of bicycle you'll need based on where you ride:
| Off Roading / Rugged Roads | MTB |
| Semi Paved Roads / City Roads | Hybrid |
| Highways / Paved Smooth Roads | Road |
| Skate Parks / Dirt Tracks/ Stunt | BMX |
In addition to these categories, there are also Specialty bicycles like Folding bicycles and Electric Bicycles. But choosing one of those is fairly straight forward.
Once you've got the answer to these two questions, it only boils down to the Brand, Frame Size and Colour.
While there are still other factors that make one bicycle different from another like type of Brakes, Suspension and choice of components and materials, these are all based on preference.
