Performance hybrid bikes don’t attract the kind of enthusiasts who keep endless threads going on road-bike or mountain-bike forums, debating the merits and flaws of different brands and models. Still, we dug up what reviews we could find, looking for praise and dings.

The sweet spot for a starter bike like this used to be $500. Drop much lower, and you’re stuck with outmoded or truly poorly made parts that might be hard to replace once they wear out; spend more, and you can get a nicer bike, with lighter components, but that defeats the purpose of a starter bike. However, many of the $500 bikes we looked at a few years back have gone up in price, some by as much as 35%.

After seeing what’s available now and consulting commuters, bike-shop owners, and mechanics, we settled on what we’d like to see now in the ideal basic hybrid-fitness bike.

Fitness-appropriate geometry: When bike people talk about “geometry,” they’re talking about the angles at which the tubes that make up the bike’s frame meet. Change the degrees of the angles, and you change the way the bike handles on corners and going up and down hills. If the bike is too responsive, it could feel squirrelly and unstable. For efficiency’s sake, the design of your hybrid’s frame should be closer to that of a road bike than to that of a beach cruiser. You don’t want to sit straight up, especially on a longer weekend ride, because you’ll have to fight the wind more.

Flat handlebars: These are more user-friendly than the drop bars you see on a road bike, and since you will be more upright, your field of vision will be broader—a plus in city traffic.

Safe, strong brakes: Mechanical (or cable-actuated) disc brakes have just about replaced traditional V brakes on even low-priced hybrids. This isn’t necessarily a good thing: As Loren Copsey, co-owner of The Daily Rider in Washington, DC, said, “On these bikes you’re going to get entry-level disc brakes, which are hard to set up and hard to keep adjusted, and lower-quality pads—and they’re not necessarily even more powerful than rim brakes.” Also, bikes with disc brakes are almost always heavier than comparable bikes with rim brakes. However, it’s now unusual to find a hybrid equipped with V brakes that doesn’t have serious flaws elsewhere.

Fender and rack mounts: Using panniers attached to a rear rack, instead of a backpack, to carry your gear lowers your center of gravity, which is a good thing. Also, no sweaty back. Fenders will keep you (and your riding companions) somewhat drier when you’re riding in the rain—or on wet roads, after the rain has ended.

Gearing appropriate for your terrain: By this we mean, for the most part, that the bike should have gears and not be a single-speed. Single speeds do have their place. In flat parts of the country that have vicious winters—hello, Minnesota!—the fewer moving parts in a drivetrain, the better. But for most of us, gears will come in handy. Most fitness hybrids come with three chainrings in front and seven or eight cogs in the back, for a total of 21 or 24 gears, which would give you enough options for pretty much anywhere you’ll be riding. Something we’ve seen more of lately are hybrids with just a single chainring up front. Having one fewer shifter to deal with is appealing, but to get the equivalent range of gears, you need a big—and expensive and heavy—cassette in the rear. So we eliminated such hybrids.

A sturdy yet reasonably lightweight frame: You do want to be able to carry your bike up steps or down into the subway, or be able to lift it onto a bus or a bike rack. But you also want it to withstand being knocked around a little. So you’ll probably be looking at an aluminum frame. Aluminum’s a third of the weight of steel, and it doesn’t cost nearly as much as carbon; the ride can be a bit jarring, though. Steel provides a cushier ride, but a good-quality, lightweight steel frame will not be cheap. Almost all of the bikes we looked at, though, do have steel-bladed forks; the slight increase in weight that they add is worth the vibration dampening they provide. (Of these forks, we preferred those made from chrome-moly, a type of steel that’s stronger than high-tensile steel, which you tend to see in very cheap bikes.)

Decent-quality components: Here, it’s a matter of finding the right balance of price, quality, and durability. One thing we would avoid, though, are bikes that come with old-fashioned freewheel cogsets on the rear wheel, instead of the more modern cassettes. A common complaint on the few hybrid user threads we’d found was being stuck with a wheel whose hub was compatible only with freewheel cogs, which are becoming hard to find, especially high-level ones. What you really don’t want to buy is a bike with a freewheel and disc brakes—and we’re seeing more and more of them. If that rear wheel gets stolen or destroyed, good luck replacing it, said Copsey: “You just can’t find those two things on an off-the-shelf wheel.”

Wide rims: The wider the rims on the wheels, the wider the tire you can use, and the lower the air pressure you need, which gives you a more comfortable ride. “A big fat tire is the poor man’s suspension,” said Michael Ferrand, owner of Bicycle Michael’s, in New Orleans. The norm for these bikes’ rims is 32 mm—you’ll want at least that. (One welcome trend is the increasing number of hybrids being sold with wider tires: Instead of the usual 35s, they’re coming with 38 mm tires and even 40 mm.) Speaking of suspension, none of our experts would recommend getting a $500 bike with front suspension, no matter how bad your roads are. As Emily Thibodeau, owner of Hub Bicycle (now closed), in Cambridge, Massachusetts, put it, “The shocks you’d get are really heavy and can’t be adjusted—it’s like having a glorified pogo stick on the front of your bike.”

When we first compiled this guide, in 2017, we started with a master list of 45 bikes and filtered it down to 16 to test. In subsequent years, we dove deep into the latest specs for all the bikes we’d ever looked at, as well as those of our picks, and of any new bikes on the scene. When necessary, we called in models that had undergone any substantial changes.

Next came the test-riding stage. The highlight was what I like to call the Supermarket Slalom: riding up and down a steep driveway leading to my local Safeway, while weaving through a line of soft-hit poles, to test the bikes’ handling. San Francisco even obliged with a few rainstorms, which made the abundant broken glass in the parking lot even more appealing to tires and the pedestrian walkway’s plastic surface even more slippery.

Here are two things to remember when you’re shopping. First, you should try to test-ride any bike you’re considering buying—how a bike feels to you and how your body feels while riding it are intensely personal.

The second thing is that bikes don’t often change that much—or at all—from one model year to the next. If the bike you like isn’t available anymore but the dealer says that next year’s model is arriving soon, ask if it’s a “carry-forward” model. If it is, nothing will be changing.