Looking for new bike 340lb / 6ft
Hey all,
I haven't ridden a bike on a regular basis in 10+ years. I always enjoyed it when I was younger but life caught up to me in my 20's and a steady diet of pizza and beer along with the long Wisconsin winters pushed my weight up significantly. At my heaviest I weighed in over 410 pounds in February of 2018. Since then I have worked my way down to 340, however I have leveled off since January and I'm looking to be more active now that the weather should turn nice over the next few weeks. As for riding conditions, I imagine the toughest thing for the bike will be my weight. I won't be doing much off of smooth surfaces as a I have a lot of bike paths in my general area. The hardest riding I anticipate would possibly be gravel bike paths.
For starters I've done some basic research online and have visited a local bike store and spent some time talking to a very nice and knowledgeable employee. He showed me some examples of different bikes and I've found the hybrid or more basic mountain bike design to be my comfort. He made some basic recommendations based on my size:
- Steel frame preferred, aluminum should be good also.
- 26 inch wheels if possible
- Minimum 32 - prefer 36 spoke wheel (I'm aware these may need to be upgraded to better build quality even if the bike I find meets these specs)
Initially I asked about used bikes, but unfortunately he simply didn't have anything that could accommodate my size. As for new, he didn't have anything that was an exact match, but he did show me the Specialized Roll Sport. New, this ran a little over $600, which honestly is over my self imposed budget of $500.
I've been doing some searching and I found the Trek 820. This bike checks basically all of the basic boxes provided by the person I was working with, and on a current sale of $350 would keep me under budget. I was curious if any of you out there have any experience with this particular model or have other suggestions that would be in this general price range. I'm not afraid of buying used, but it would need to be available local so I could sit on it and make sure it's a comfortable fit.
Thanks in advance for any and all advice!