gman0482 said:
Another question that I have is : With the New England weather coming to an end very quicky, should I wait until winter for a better deal ? or it doesn't matter that much and get a bike now, because I am SOO fired up to buy a new bike right now. The biggest reason is, I just had to buy a cheap $80 wheel because the spokes started snapping off on the rear. I would rather save $ to put towards a new bike, and not keep dumping $ into a 2000 cyclocross.
You won't see many price discounts on this year's bikes until later in the year, likely after Interbike in October. You can, however, score bigger deals on 2008, 2007, and other new old stock bikes in shops. In fact, that's a great way to end up with a great buy.
Unless you're confident in your bike size, now, and know what to look for in other bikes in terms of size (i.e. top tube length, head tube length, seat tube angle, head tube angle, and so on), I'd avoid internet bike purchases. In general, it's harder to return a wrongly sized bike bought through an internet purchase than it is one bought at an LBS.
Another benefit to buying at an LBS is bike fitting. Any reputable LBS will be able to do a bike fit correctly. Normally bike fits run $50-$100ish. If you do the fit, almost all of the LBS's will deduct the cost of that fit from your new bike. So that's not a bad deal at all. Also if you buy a complete bike from an LBS, they're more likely to switch out parts that don't work for you/fit you, such as saddles, stems, different pedals perhaps.....You should shop several LBS's. IMHO, it's worth a bit of driving to find a good LBS and a good bike deal.