A road bike within 600 bucks
- Thread starter KROSS
- Start date
What country do you live in?
If you live in the USA Bikes Direct has a decent Motobecane for $649, see: http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/motobecane/grand_record_xii.htm Comes with Sora front and Tiagra rear derailleurs.
Or if you can stretch the budget a bit more there is a Dawes that has Tiagra front with 105 rear derailleurs; see: http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/dawes/lt2300_xii.htm
Both of the above are on sale of their normally obscene low prices for a limited time, check sizes because they do run out of some sizes during sales.
If you live in the USA Bikes Direct has a decent Motobecane for $649, see: http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/motobecane/grand_record_xii.htm Comes with Sora front and Tiagra rear derailleurs.
Or if you can stretch the budget a bit more there is a Dawes that has Tiagra front with 105 rear derailleurs; see: http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/dawes/lt2300_xii.htm
Both of the above are on sale of their normally obscene low prices for a limited time, check sizes because they do run out of some sizes during sales.
I know that.
I also know that most newbs shouldn't build up their own bikes. Sorry. I've had to fix too many botched builds, at $80 a pop plus parts (usually new cables and housings).
But, yeah, while the MSRPs are total BS, BikesDirect does offer very nice low-priced bikes at very nice prices.
I can't either, but what may be ugly to me or you may not be to someone else, so I posted them regardless of looks.
Even if the newbs have no mechanical skills they can take the bike in the box down to any LBS and for about $145 they will assemble it and adjust it. If the newb has some mechanical know how it's not too difficult to assemble the bike than afterwards take the bike to a shop and for about $30 they will adjust it. Of course call you shops to get pricing for this sort of work.
That's about what I was saying. Newbs, and ham-fisted experienced riders, should factor in the cost of a shop build. Those with a "friend who knows everything about bikes" who says he'll do the build for beer and pizza should be wary.
I dig BikesDirect bikes. I like building them, especially when I get to crack open the carton. I think the MSRPs are an exaggeration. I think the quality control is pretty comparable to what comes at similar price levels from the biggies, which means the builder should be prepared to adjust hubs and dish and true wheels.
Comparable to the biggies? not in my town! There is no titanium bike sold anywhere that comes close to the price they sell theirs for, and that's just one example of many. Even their lower end bikes you can't find components to match the ones they use at a biggie especially the two that I mentioned that were on sale with 105 rear and Tiagra front for $700 or the other one with Tiagra rear and Sora front for $650, again, not at least in my town. In my town to get a bike with 105 and Tiagra a person needs $1500, or $1200 for the Tiagra/Sora. Trek's 1.2 comes only with all Sora for $929 and their lowest priced bike with all 105 is the Madone 2 for $1800. Scott's Speedster 20 has 105 rear and Tiagra front for $1400. Best deal in the Biggie stores is the Felt ZW85 where you can get all 105 for $1349. How do those prices compare similar to the Bikes Direct bikes? Even after paying $145 or so for a complete assembly and adjustment for a Bikes Direct bike you're still far ahead of the Biggies.
They don't teach bike mechanics in high school. Yes, alf, you are superior to everyone else.
Moving right along, I have to say that I fix bikes for a lot of people who are smarter than I am. A lot of them wouldn't know which end of an allen wrench to stick in the little hole. The smartest of them know the right time to ask for help is before they make an expensive mistake.
Moving right along, I have to say that I fix bikes for a lot of people who are smarter than I am. A lot of them wouldn't know which end of an allen wrench to stick in the little hole. The smartest of them know the right time to ask for help is before they make an expensive mistake.
BTW. It is not a question of someone being "superior" or "smarter" than someone else as you mockingly suggest ...
However, it IS probably a matter of realizing that how a bike is spec'd at-the-factory isn't always the best ...
And then, being curious enough to see if a better option exists.
The initial revelation came when I replaced my SIMPLEX rear derailleur with a SHIMANO Crane SGS rear derailleur ...
Sweet!!!
As far as those people whom you encounter in your day-to-day routine who are mechanical incompetents, the people of THAT ilk whom 'I' know who are like that tend to be snobs who choose not to learn how to replace-a-light-bulb because they think it is beneath their elevated mental status to perform manual tasks ...
this mechanically incompetency is all due to our world changing from a mechanical world to a electronical world. Go back to when I graduated from high school in 1971, I knew nothing about computers, there were a few who did though (yes primitive computers of course); now that has reversed, a lot of grads today understand computers but few understand mechanics. I don't think this is a good thing though, I think there should be a balance so we don't end up with a society who can't repair mechanical things that are still being used extensively in our society. But this is why I've found as the years gone by starting when I first started to ride bikes that I never encountered someone who couldn't fix a flat on the road, heck I learned when I was 8 years old as did most kids in my era, but now a days I run into people all the time who don't have a clue how to fix a flat!
But keep in mind too that in my earlier years very few women rode bikes, today that has increase dramatically, and a lot of women don't take a huge interest in fixing flats, but in my above paragraph I was looking at men and it's the increasing number of men who can't fix flats; I also did not include children who usually knew how to fix a flat but they never carried flat repair stuff. I did back in the day would help fix a flat for someone and it was always a woman (again not including children) but it was very rare because women riders were rare. The only man I ever helped on the road up until around the early 90's or mid 90's was a guy who blew through his two tubular spares and didn't have a tubular patch kit so I lent him mine, but he fixed it himself, I just sat there socializing with him. Since that time period though the frequency of people not knowing how to fix flats has gone up quite a bit.
Also baby boomers are retiring, some of these guys never did anything mechanical either because they weren't interested in riding bikes back when they were young, so as they retired they began thinking about doing physical activity, a lot of these guys don't have a clue either about fixing a flat. I've seen quite a few blue hairs riding $6,000 plus bicycles without a clue as to how to fix a flat.
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