All good advice, one and all. I guess I was trying to figure out whether it was truly a "great bike" and might be "the one that got away", hence my post. Seems like the consensus is that it is a good one, so I should at least go see it. How does a bike like this ride compared to a lower end aluminum road bike from say Giant or Specialized? Are the components going to be better working and longer lasting than say Claris or Sora or even 105? I'm not challenging I just don't know anything about bikes of this age so I'm trying to gauge the pros and cons. I'm very intrigued about older bikes because it seems like they were less disposable than the bikes of today.