Ten Lessons in Buying Bicycles for Large, Plus Sized, or Fat People

I remember, when I was a kid, how much I loved to ride my bike. I would speed over the pavement and fly through the wind. I also remember falling flat on my face and getting road rash on my cheek. Not that injury ever stopped me.

A couple years back my husband and I gave up our car. After we gave up the car we relied almost exclusively on walking or the bus to get us around. We weren't really sure if bicycles were a good alternative. We live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment so there was the issue of space. Bicycles were routinely stolen from around our apartment, so locking it up outside wasn't a great option. And we don't live on the ground floor, so there would be some hauling bikes up and down those stairs.

I was a chubby kid. Now, as an adult, you can call me large, plus sized, or fat. Whatever you call it, I'm overweight. My husband is also a large guy. When we finally decided to go ahead and buy a couple bikes I didn't think our weight would be a contributing factor. It turned out to be a much larger part of our bicycle experience than I ever expected.

We bought a pair of $100 bicycles from Walmart. We didn't see the point of multiple gears, since we only planned on using the bicycles for local trips, so we went with a couple cruisers. The moment we got our shiny new bikes home we decided to take them for a quick ride. A few blocks from home the chain on my husband's bike slipped off.

This is the first lesson we learned about buying bicycles from a corporate chain. Later that day I went online and read complaints from other people that had problems with their bikes the moment they got them home. The theme being that many chain stores have inexperience clerks put together the bikes in-store and they often assembled them improperly.

LESSON #1 : CORPORATE CHAINS SUCK AT PUTTING BIKES TOGETHER.

With a quick fix to my husband's bike, and a quick once over my new bike, we were once again happy with our purchase. After that it didn't take long for the bikes to become a part of our regular lives. My husband started to ride his to work and, on weekends, we'd ride together to various local destinations. Sometimes to the store or sometimes to our local bar.