Before you choose a type of bike you need to decide what type of cycling you want to do. View our “types of cycling” page check out all the different things you can do on a bike. Maybe you’ll discover something you hadn’t considered before, another sort of riding in addition to your main use for this bike that will affect your choice. The “types of cycling” page is worth visiting first even if you already know exactly what you want to do, since there you’ll find a link to the right kind of bike for each activity.

Or you can skip that and dive straight into the rich soup that comprises all the available configurations and styles of pedal cycle.

But what’s with “pedal cycle” – why not call a bike a bike? You’ve got to realise that the common bike or bicycle, meaning two wheels with pedals between them and a saddle above, is only one of many possible configurations. Three wheels, for example, makes a tricycle or trike. Click here to explore some of the other ways of arranging wheels, pedals and seats. Each has its own pros and cons and comes in various styles.

By style I mean how a bike (or trike etc.) is optimised to make it most suitable for a certain type of cycling: all those detailed differences that make it either a racing bike, or a touring bike, or a mountain-bike, or whatever. Finally we get to the information you expected to find under the “What Bike” button! Click here for styles of bikes.