What do you guys think is the best bang for your buck road bike in the $1000-$1200 price range? Mail order or LBS is beside the point so both are incuded here.

Bianchi Eros is a pretty decent bike if you like steel and low end campy. Ride quality is good. You can usually find prior model years at significant discounts, at least you do around Boston.

Note that the tires on bikes in this range often suck. Definitely invest in some high end clinchers - you will not believe the difference in ride.

I should have added the 2004 LeMond Tourmalet to the list. Anyone with any experience with that bike or LeMond's aluminum frames in general? Quality?

Get a Fort with ultegra. Those brandnames might be flashy but the components o the lowrage brandname bikes are not what you want. You simply pay too much for the brand.

Felt

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When men were men and sheep were scared

$1200 for the Fusion gets you full Ultegra, carbon fork and carbon seat stays. If this bike had a big time logo on it the tag would be close to $1700 (such as the Trek 2300).

I agree. The Fusion seems to be an awesome value -- don't forget the Velomax wheelset it sports. If your local shop won't mind servicing it, it's a great choice!

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i relish complicating the obvious and trivializing the stupendous

Or more. This is an excellent bike for the price.

55/Rad

Scattante 650 from Supergo

Note though that this price for the 2003 model which I believe are now gone. The 2004 is $1599. Still not a bad price, but I would be wary of ordering a mail-order bike when they will not provide anything but the incomplete 2003 frame geometries (they 2004 is a totally different tubeset). And even at that they refuse to provide information on specific request for such basic things as standover height.

Pretty piss-poor customer relation policy.

Many of you have polled but only a couple offer your opinion. I have the Mercier. I have put a couple hundred miles on it and am satisfied. I did not buy it mail/internet order but got it at Cycle Spectrum, which is the retail outlet for bikesdirect. The only things I did not like about it were the crappy pedals and grip tape. I put stainless eggbeater pedals and Bar Phat grips on it. I have a 60cm and it weighs 20lbs.

The OCR 1 is good. Several bike/outdoor magazines have said it is a very good value. For full ultegra, the Mercier does sound good, although I don't really know much about the specs of any of the bikes. I've read good reviews about the Specialized Allez Elite in this forum too.

Anybody know if "Xero" has a website? I've tried to learn about the Xero XSR-2/3/4 wheelsets that come with the Giant OCRs, but can't find anything. Or, for entry-level bikes, are they decent/durable?

I was also looking for the Xero stuff... I kept looking for Formula (I thought that was the brand name, and Xero was a model or something)

It's darn difficult to dig out the info, even from the web!

Anyway, had managed to locate it (whew!)
www.xerowheel.com
Quite a nice Flash web to say the least
** Can't find there older 02/03 models
ENJOY!

I am planning to get a Alloy TCR 2... after my 2 weeks call up in the army
Can't wait to get my hands (and butt) on it!

Yeah, the site looks good, but basically says nothing...For those who ride the OCRs, what did they thing of the Xero XSR wheels?

get a 2003 lemond tourmalet, steel. very good ride and good handling. could use upgraded wheels but everything works well.