Originally Posted by Zinger

Take your time in seeing what's around out there. You might find a steel frame bike suits your needs or might want CF for keeping up with the Joneses. Look everything over before pigeon holing yourself into what the LBS shows you......There are lots of options to be found in a google search. Sometimes it's best to take a few months at this to find something attractive to you that suits your needs perfectly.

Just make sure whatever kind of frame you decide on fits you perfectly.

Originally Posted by TiHabanero

Gotta jump in on this one, as I sell bikes, and have since 1983. Add a grand to the budget and get a new bike. If you are in the 1200 dollar range, you will gain a new bike, but not a new ride. The OCR was a gifted performer, good ride quality, and with the right bits on it, under 20lbs. Save up some more dough, and get an upgrade, not a warmed over new bike. However, and here it comes, one qualifier is if the bike is being closed out at a sweet price...then by all means 1500 bucks could easily buy a 2200 dollar machine, so get it!

Originally Posted by chasm54

OK, if you're now in the grip of bike consumer fever, and think you want a new bike, I'd suggest you continue along the "different flavor" line of thought. If you're buying a new bike there's no law that says you have to get rid of the old one, so consider keeping that - as you've previously observed, it's a perfectly decent road bike - and get something that you'd use for slightly different purposes.

I currently have four bikes. Used to be five, but I actually got round to selling one. My carbon race bike is a seven year-old Giant TCR. It has long been superseded by later editons and the new Propel, but it is still perfectly serviceable, stiff enough for me and with a frame weight of 1.1k I'd save only about 1lb in weight by spending about $3000 on a new frame. So it's going nowhere.

However, it isn't a bike I'd use for touring or commuting or off-road. So I have a heavy-duty tourer that will carry me and lots of luggage over reasonably challenging terrain. Then for just mooching around town there's the FG/SS - also doubles as a training bike in winter - which is much the cheapest, and which I don't mind locking up in places where a more expensive bike would draw the eye of bike thieves. And finally, there's the custom steel road bike that overlaps a bit with the TCR but is set up less aggressively for those long days in the hills.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that if you are going to have more than one, it is worth thinking hard about the sort of riding you'd like to do. Certainly a CX bike - maybe a Specialized tricross, if your LBS is a Specialized dealer - might be an option, it's a versatile bike in itself. And if you are using the bike to commute, a CX with a rack fitted is an excellent choice, fast enough to be fun, capable of carrying a load, clearances for mudguards and so on. And incidentally, commuting is a great way to get time on the bike without eating into the rest of your day.

Originally Posted by Jinkster

Dear God Almighty!...not to be not nice to nobody and hats off to the old dude for sure but to be honest?...neither one...the drug companies couldn't make enough aleve for me to wanna still be pedaling at 102! LOL!