Yep, the 2011 bike riding season is here! I only have a few miles in so far this year, but we’ve had some decent riding days in the the Chicagoland area already and daylight savings time is starting next week!

I also just discovered  that most of the retailers, that sell bikes online (for home or store delivery), still have some 2010 bikes available (and in some cases, at very good prices) and are also starting to get a good selection of 2011 bikes listed.

So I’ve gone through all of the bike review pages and links on this site and have updated them to the 2010 and 2011 bike models that are currently available online. Now this can be a little bit of a moving target since bikes models come and go and online supplies vary too, but you can still usually find more of a selection online (for the manufacturers that allow online sales).

So if you start with the Online Bike Sales page on this site, you will have all of the models that are for sale online and have been reviewed on this site. This now includes primarily 2010 and 2011 models (although in some cases you can get a real deal on some 2009 bikes if the model and size that you want is still available).

Note that this site focuses on bikes that are available for purchase online so you will not find reviews here for brands like Trek, Giant, Haro, Specialized, etc. that are not for sale online. You will need to visit one of your local bike shops to buy one of these brands.

And finally, my next project is to update the Best Buy Bikes page on this site to include the 2011 models. I’m sorry but I have not been able to update this page with the 2011 models yet but I am in the process of reviewing the bikes, the online sales and also the bike sale statistics from this site from 2010. I should have this completed real soon.

Enjoy the 2011 riding season!

I’ve been doing a lot of bike reviews and comparisons recently (online and at local shops) and I also just took a break and went out for a nice little 23 mile ride. I was feeling pretty good and was averaging a pretty good speed for my ride (and really enjoying it) and I started thinking about that old line in the Top Gun movie when Maverick was saying “I feel the need… ” and Goose joined in with “…the need for speed”!

Sometimes it just feels great to push yourself a little and enjoy the exhilaration and speed.

Well, I also just wrote up a review on the Fuji SL1 Bikes (which I reviewed at Performance Bike recently and also researched online). So, with this in mind, I just had to add that line to the top of my review at the Fuji SL1 Review page. 

I wanted to photoshop a picture of Tom Cruise racing the jet on his motorcycle and turn the motorcycle into a racing bike too, but I was a little concerned that Paramount (or whoever owns the copyrights) might see my photoshopped photo and sue me or something.

Oh well, that would have been cool 🙂 So much for keeping this site legit.

Anyway, I do really think that the Fuji SL1 models are great bikes too, but you can read all about at the page link above if you are interested.

I just visited quite a few bike shops in our area (Performance, REI, Village Cycle, Dicks, etc.) to see what was new for this year (or on sale from 2009) and to review the latest hybrids that they are selling.

I got distracted with the 2009 bikes on sale a little more so than checking into all of the latest 2010 models. As usual, since this is a transition period and bike shops are still trying to move last years models out, so the prices for last years models (brand new of course) are excellent right now.

Of course, I’ve included some of my favorites (and the favorites of some of the more knowledgeable bike shop people that I ran into) on our Hybrid and Comfort Bikes page.

Since Performance Bike is so big, I think that they probably had the best selection of 2009 bikes on sale (like plenty of Fuji bikes) but REIalso had a few 2009 bikes on sale and their 2010 prices were pretty reasonable too. If you really like a bike at REI and can wait, they have good sales pretty often and the bikes will most likely be reduced when they have a sale.

Dicks Sporting Goods mostly had a lot of mid range and lower end bikes but that had a couple of good brands (K2, and Schwinn) too. I also hit a Wal-Mart and Sports Authority too. These stores were all had pretty comparable bike but Dicks and Sports Authority were the best for having a large selection on display and easily available to review. The sales people at these stores are generally not that knowledgeable about bikes and bike brands. I found that the sales people at REI and especially at Performance Bike to be very helpful. 

One of our local shops, Village Cycle, deals mostly with Trek bikes (which you can not buy online) but I found that they also had a good selection of Raleigh bikes on display.

It was a slow day at the bike shop and I really had a good opportunity to review a lot of Raleigh bikes and compare them to the other more common bike store brands.  I know that you can buy Raleigh bikes online at REI but neither of the 2 REI  stores that I visited had any on display. I asked about this and the guy at the second store said that one of the larger stores by us (but further away for me) has them or you can order them online and have them delivered to the store but the do not keep them on display.

I haven’t had a chance to write up my reviews on the Raleigh bikes yet but I can tell you that these are really nice bikes and some are also very stylish. One thing that is very obvious, aside from the quality components, is that Raleigh bikes (especially the hybrids and comfort bikes) have really nice seats!  

I believe that the best deals going on right now though are on Fuji Bikes(mostly at Performance Bike). These are excellent bikes with high quality components. I think one of the reasons that they are not perceived as the high end bikes that they are is because they used to sell their bikes through mass market (“Big Box”) stores instead of exclusively at bike shops. They have changed that marketing approach, but one of the best things is that you can still order this bikes online too.

I’m still working on some more bike reviews, but check out my 2009 and 2010 picks at the Hybrid and Comfort Bikes Link above.