New vs. used: value and practicality - transeo 2 and bad boy ultra

Well, I guess it's time for a serious bike. I have a daily commute of about 5 miles each way, mostly city streets, not too hilly. I also contemplate maybe getting into some light trail riding. The streets are in typically urban rough shape.

I've been looking at a lot of different bikes: fat bikes, mountain bikes, hybrid bikes, etc. I don't anticipate biking in bad weather (northeast US) when the snow and ice arrive.

There a lot of decent bikes out there for $600 - $1000. Went to a couple of LBS and looked around, spoke to some salespople who were pretty helpful. I just dunno if I want to spend a lot of money on a new bike when something that's been well cared for - and a few years old - would also suffice. I know pretty much zero about the world of used bikes.

Right now, the contenders for a used bike are a Transeo 2.0 (2012) in very nice shape, which I can buy for maybe $225, - and - a Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra (2008 or 9) which looks like it hasn't seen virtually any use - for $400. The Transeo has disc brakes, upright bars, and can take the typical assortment of accessories. The Bad Boy also has disc brakes and upright bars, and maybe a problematic issue with adding fenders or mud flaps due to the fork construction. I spent enough years hunched over my ancient Peuget AO-8 to know that drop bars are probably no longer for me.

My mostly uninformed experience tells me to buy the Bad Boy Ultra. But I also like the idea of the Transeo being more adaptable. Or then again, I could go to a LBS or to a local REI and buy a 2016 bike) for maybe $600, brand new, after Labor Day launches (hereabouts, apparently...) closeout sales.

Ideas? TIA for your advice.

 

For what you described as your commute which was on surface streets, and you also mentioned you like doing some mild off road riding, for that you don't need a bike with suspension fork. Suspension forks appeal to males that think they need such a thing to fuel their macho image! The only time you would ever need a suspension fork is if you were doing some fast downhill rough off road riding, and then the quality of the fork will come into play because a cheap one is not up to that task.

A suspension fork means you have something else that can break and can be expensive to replace, it means unnecessary added weight that will make the bike feel sluggish, it means the front suspension thing as you turn the crank will absorb about 25 watts of power which again will make the bike feel sluggish, it means your handling won't be a true, these inefficiencies will make your commute less exciting for you.

I use to live in Southern California and I use to ride off road in the mountains and I never owned a suspension bike, all I used was a rigid bike, but I wasn't racing either yet I could descend pretty darn fast.

If you think you need some sort of suspension then simply get a rigid bike and then buy fatter tires and pump them with less PSI then normal.

 

Thanks for your comments. I ended up doing something very different. The Transeo got sold (it was 90 miles away) , and the Bad Boy seems to be a truly bad boy when it comes to maintaining the suspension - need special tools to repair, and prone to failure anyway - not for me. I drove 120 miles (each way) to buy a really nicely maintained 5 year old Surly Pugsley than came with 3 sets of tires: Nates, Larrys and Knards. I had tested out a new Surly Wednesday at a LBS and really loved the way it rode and handled with the tires inflated to 12 psi or so. The Pugs came with the Nates installed, right now at maybe 16 psi, and I'm bombing around on those just to get used to the bike. Although it has a relatively heavy steel frame, I'm not finded it hard to pedal - just lots of fun!

 

Nice bike. With fat tires and low psi you don't need a suspension fork or frame the tires do it for you. Not sure where you live but you even find studded tires for ice and snow.

 

Thanks. Given the really terrible road conditions here in the Northeast in the winter (snow, lots and lots of road salt), I'm thinking of not riding too much then. Just maintaining the bike with all of that salt would be a major undertaking, not to mention the usual array of distracted/clueless car drivers - whose bad habits are made much worse in dicey weather conditions. But I think the Nates would be up to most of the demands of winter riding, so I'm going to wait and see how the weather develops.

 

Riding a bike in salt is really bad for bikes, it will eat and rust out steel, and it will corrode aluminum, the salt grit will eat chains and gears, make it's way into bearings destroying those.

I use to have schwinn traveller that I rode in the sand and ocean surf and I had to rinse it off after every ride, and even after doing that the AL components still became corroded, and there was rust on the inside of the frame with the steel flaking on the bottom bracket, I junked the bike after only riding it about 8 years like that but it was in storage for another 20 or so years after that. But that's what I bought that bike for so I could ride on the wet sand along the ocean, so I wasn't not expecting that to happen.