Lukas: Buying your first bike in Örebro

Where to buy a bicycle?

There are essentially three places to check when you are looking for a bike, and each comes with their own pros and cons. Naturally, the first option is a bicycle shop. There are several of such shops around town, and they usually have a couple of secondhand bikes for sale. The upside to bike shops is that they’re usually officially registered stores. You usually get a receipt and sometimes even warranty upon buying a bike, and the bike will have gotten a checkup before being sold. I bought my first bike at Nasses Cykelverkstad and was happy with the service. The downside is that the prices are usually higher than the other two options. Typical pricing: ~1000-2000 kr.

Bike #1

The second option to buying your bike is Blocket. Blocket is a big online secondhand selling platform and usually has well-priced options available around Örebro. Sellers must register with their personal number to sell something on Blocket, making the platform quite safe. Unfortunately, as a buyer you need to register in the same way, so if you don’t have your personal number yet, Blocket may not be the option for you. Typical pricing: ~500-1500 kr.

The final option is Facebook Marketplace. Facebook is still widely used in Sweden, and you’ll come to find numerous bikes for sale on the platform. Like Blocket, prices can be very generous, perfect for those living on a student budget. The biggest downside of Facebook Marketplace, however, is the presence of shady sellers. The platform requires no personal registering, and bike thieves just use fake names to sell their stolen goods on the platform. Buying a stolen bike is illegal, so recognizing shady ads is a good skill to possess. Here are some signs to recognize stolen bike advertisements: newly created profiles, unclear profile pictures that don’t show a face, unusual names, requests to meet in a public place (instead of a home address), Monark bikes with too-good-to-be-true prices, and statements about how “lower prices can be negotiated if you respond to the ad fast”. If you stay cautious, though, Facebook Marketplace has the potential to be your best bet. Typical pricing: ~500-1500 kr.

What features should your bike have?

Aside from the obvious things such as sizing, functioning brakes, and whether you like the looks, I would advise you to take two specific features into account. Firstly, make sure your bicycle has reasonably thick tires. During winter (preparations), the city douses the roads with little stones that aid against slipperiness when the snow falls, but these same stones also have the tendency to pierce delicate tires. Remember that first bike of mine? I had to repair eight flat tires within two months during the winter months because of this, which ultimately made me decide to buy a different one.

Bike #2 along with the two cut locks I locked it with

Sadly, my new bike didn’t last me long because it got stolen after two months. I wish I could say it were different, but bike theft is simply a very common occurrence in Örebro. Buying a good luck is obviously a good precaution, but thieves don’t skimp on using machine saws at night to cut through even the big locks if the bike can make them enough money. So, my second piece of advice is to not get a bicycle that’s too fancy, and if you do, make sure to store it inside your home or a locked shed if you have access to one. Having your bike stolen sucks, but having your nice, expensive bike stolen is arguably worse.

I currently own a second hand, slightly too small, purple bike from an uninteresting brand that I bought from a “real person” off Facebook Marketplace. It’s not the nicest bike I owned in Örebro, but at least I don’t feel the need to check whether it’s still there whenever I leave my house, and to me that’s worth it.