I suggest you stay with a borrowed bike for a while and perhaps try out different sorts of bikes that other people own. I’d suggest buying second hand for your first toe-in-the-water approach, though this can be much easier if you have a cycling-nut friend to call on at purchase time.

There is a huge intersection of Geek and Cyclist around the world, perhaps best exemplified in Oz by the mtb-oz mailing list. You *could* join the list via mtb-oz.com but I suggest that the signal to noise ratio wouldn’t suit you. Having said that, many of my Real Life friends I met via mtb-oz and it is a great source of information.

I still remember my first adult cycling experience back in Dee Why in the early 90’s. A neighbour was cleaning out his garage and about to dispose of a big box of bits that had once been a bike. He gave them to me and I rebuilt the bike. I then rode it 3km and nearly died from the effort.

Some years later; I have a garage full of bikes, I have ridden the east coast of Australia from Wilson’s Prom to Cooktown, I have raced road and mountain bikes, I commute 23km each way to work and think I can now call myself a cyclist. So, welcome to the fold!

Links. Links. There are so many.

http://phantomcycles.com.au claims to be Australia’s biggest little bike shop. Kerry is in Tahmoor, south of Sydney and he has always managed to do good work and great prices for me. Ring him up, have a chat and a package arrives on my doorstep the next day. I’m in Canberra, he’s several hundred km away, but he’s my default bike shop.

http://sheldonbrown.com/home.html is the link no cycling geek can ignore. Follow all his links to sit at the feet of the master and learn all. Most of us first learned things like building our own wheels by reading Sheldon.

Cheers,
MC