Originally Posted by Thomas15

Not to sound like a jerk, but we all understand that a thousand dollars is a thousand dollars not a quarter. Any bicycle that you purchase new at that price point is a bike that is set up to compete in the market at that price point. In other words it is going to be a canned set up, not a custom machine. There will be compromises. The only problem is while you can swap out components to make it fit your particular tastes, usually doing a component swap will increase the amount of money you spend.

So if swapping out bars, stems and shifters, brake levers, saddle on a new $800 bicycle costs an additional $300 then quite obviously your now buying a $1100 bike. So you should then consider comparing $1100 bikes not $800 bikes. Personally I'm a firm believer that you should get exactly what you want. Even if that means saving up more money for a few months. If you purchased a $1500 bike, for the first month or so you would be like "wow what a bike" but a year later you will be saying to yourself It's a nice bike but I really would like to have _______ and ______.

I started getting semi-serious about riding about this time last year. Second or third time out on a rail trail I went with a friend that has a bike worth twice mine. This guy during our 14 mile ride literally blew my doors off. I thought my legs were going to explode! During our time together he politely pointed out the benefits of where the additional money he spent on his ride made for an overall better riding experience. I'm talking better quality forks, disk brakes and so forth. But today this guy is still doing 14 mile rides where as I'm doing 40-50 mile rides, I've managed to turn it around so that I'm blowing his doors off and doing so on the same bike I had this time last year. In my opinion, on anything over $500-$600 it's more the rider not the horse.