anxious who? me? no, you judge me wrong I have no intention to join the group riding, or do the major ride. A bit of anti-social here, lol, at least with biking community - I have other hobby for getting together do fun stuff. the purpose for me getting a bike at the first place is to commute. so at first I thought about a foldie because I ride LRT and KTM mostly to work and other places, so I thought of the idea of riding, getting the bike on the train and then ride again. 1. because connecting buses to go back home and the other ends of train station are unreliable in terms of timing 2. because I got tired of walking and I get foot ache all the time due to walking a lot 3. thought of exercising other muscles while commuting is good too as I've walked to places most of my life.

but then, after do some research on foldies, and asking here, go see some at the shops, I found out that the ones that I can afford are actually heavy and bulky to carry around in trains. Some info and some people here also said that we need to carry it in a bag, so I thought, even if the roll-able one, what's the use if it need to be put in bag and carry around. I have already injured my shoulder before and for quite some time have chronic shoulder ache due to carry my diving weights and gear almost daily to the pool. So I don't want to have another bout of shoulder ache due to carrying bicycle! (Diving weights = 4 kg, most affordable bike I can get = 11kg! so... go figure!)

So, then I figure that this might not work as I imagine and so I thought maybe better to get non-foldable bike as I don't need to pay extra for the folding thingy. I am looking for suitable bike for commute to the LRT and plan to later on when I get more fit to ride all the way to my part time office, from Gombak to KL, area Jalan Tun Ismail, which is just 10km away. Last week, astro awani covered a story about the guy who live in Sentul and cycle to his office in city centre (maybe he's one of you here?) which is about my distance 10km, and I was inspired (he uses a foldie though).

then, I imagine, later-later on, when I have enough guts with the traffic, and more more fit, I maybe want to ride all the way to PJ, to my other part time for the rest of the week, teaching swimming, lol, maybe that's a bit too farfetched? but this is for far future, perhaps this don't contribute to this discussion right now.

So then, I start research on which kind of bike is suitable to commute, from reading on the net, I found there are many types of bikes, road, touring, hybrid, mtb, cx, citybike, comfort bike bla bla bla and get lot's of answers. Most pointing to hybrid, cx, citybike, comfort for my kind of purpose. Then I go malaysian online bike shop and see choices, I found that city bike has no gear. I know I need some gears (but I don't know what is sufficient) because my place here a bit hilly, and also my office area is a more steep hill (nearby the Kenny Hill there).

the category in malaysian bike shop don't list cx and comfort bike, so I don't know, then the hybrid bike and so on. which bring to why I ask about the road bike here since somebody start talking about it. is road bike suitable for my purpose? I just ask to get some answers because I don't know much about it. It didn't help that my budget is small, so my center of questions always revolves around budget, lol. so, it's not that I want to jump into the bandwagon for a roadbike since people are doing it, more like, I don't know (have no idea) if it is suitable for commuting like my purpose?

btw, I don't have a car, I used to drive my mom's old car until it got broken to unrepairable state and I have no intention for now to have a car because all places that I need to go, I can go by public transport, the LRT and KTM train. I just don't like to wait for buses. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a cheapskate, lol, but my friend said frugal is a more positive word to describe it, so yeah, I am living frugally, which is why I am looking at bicycle now for a cheap mode of transportation from point A to point B.

finally, now my question, what is the equivalent of folding bike for non-foldable bike? mini velo? I found out that some mini velos have 7 gears which maybe suitable for me? I found a 2nd hand one which is within my budget here:

http://bicyclebuysell.com/item/299326/rale...-speed-chromoly

but other than that, not many budget mini velo that I found.

on my riding skill, I haven't ride for a long time, but I have used before a cheapo bike that have some gears (i think just the rear, can't remember), so I know and understand some veryyyy basic gearing stuff. like low for climb and high for fast. and because that was a cheap bike, I spend most of the time to put the chain back into the ring as it falls of easily ha ha ha!

btw, I know this is a folding bike thread, I am not sure if I can ask about other bikes here ? if cannot then I go ask elsewhere lah.

above all, thanks for everybody's time