Pancake Face

hey... I'm new to the board, well, i've been reading a lot of posts recently about roadbikes, etc while i've been at work, so I'll just introduce myself and my problem.

I'm a 20 year old college student and basically I want to buy a road bike to ride. However, I'm faced with the problem that I am a decent runner and could possibly walk on to a team for the indoor track season if i peak correctly (and i've talked to the coach, etc.). This summer though my friend studied abroad for the summer and left me borrow his road bike to ride occasionally for cross training while i built up basework for running and I've found riding to be really fun and relaxing, esp. some group rides. This summer i've done a routine where I'd wake up an hour to an hour and half before work (i'm a financial intern) and do close to 30-50 minutes of running and then go to work, and then right after work run anywhere between 7-10 miles. My mileage has been around 70 miles a week so far this summer. Additionally, I'll bike 3 or 4 times a week after that with my friends, or I'll bike first and then go on a run when it's much cooler at night.

However, my friend returns from Spain in the next week and I am unsure of how much of a commitment I can make to road-biking. I really do enjoy the sport, and I already know I have decent legs and lungs for the sport. I have looked at some bikes and I am making plenty of money to purchase a bike, I am just unsure of how much of a commitment I can make to the sport. What would you do? How many of you are college students that do other sports besides just cycling? What kind of time do you put into biking during the school year? I am willing to spend up to 1000 dollars on a bike, I just don't know if it's the most beneficial way to spend a couple weeks worth of my paycheck if I am unsure of the commitment I can make... (see the dilemma? it's a struggle between want/fun and commitment/time...)

any input would be nice?

monsterkidz

You have options, have you considered buying a used bike? A bike that will be used primarily just for cross training or fitness riding doesn't have cost you a ton of cash. This way you can spend less than $1000 and still have a bike that you can train on and not feel too guilty if you end up letting the bike sit.

Pancake Face

yeah, I've thought about it, but I can't seem to find one in my size, I'm not that big, like 5'7", 5'8", my friend's bike is a 54... I got fitted at a store for that size too. I just can't seem to find many people selling a used bike in the area, I've checked with the lbs but they don't have any.

phinney

Not sure I understand. Do you want to buy a bike to race or for recreational group riding? Do you plan on running track whether you get a bike or not?

Everyone's different so I don't know but I can't imagine what it would have been like to be in college and not have a bike. As far as biking versus running I think running is a pretty one dimensional, though cheap, sport. There is a-lot more to cycling and IMHO it is a healthier and more interesting life-long activity than running is. The folks on the running forums may disagree.

glassman

There are quite a few bikes selling for $1100 with full utegra 6600 10 speeds on them right now. I think I would buy one of those before I bought a 9 speed 105

SushiJoe

if you dont want to go used or some of the bikes of questionable brand; full ultegra for $1100, id take a look at the trek 1200 and 1500 (i have a 1500), Felt F80 and F70, as well as the Giant OCR1. those were the final 3 choices i narrowed it down to. Just ride everything you can in that price range. you cant go wrong with any of them although the F80 has carbon seat stays which is really cool for the $1000 range.

SushiJoe

by 3 i meant Trek, Giant and Felt by the way; just to clarify!

Pancake Face

Hey, thanks for your responses...

yeah, so here it is in a nutshell -- I ran a lot in HS and ran for a very good team, we got 2nd in the state for 4A (biggest public school division) and the top 3 runners on my team went to run for DI schools, being the 5th man on our team, i got a little chubby and started running recreationally during my spring semester freshman year, and I haven't stopped running since.

But the reason why i want to get a bike is the high impact nature of running, i've had all sorts of injuries in the past and I'm kind of getting sick of it. The only reason I started this thread was because I am unsure of what kind of commitment I can make to riding -- if I make the team, then I obvioulsy wouldn't have much time to ride, but it'd be nice to have to cross train with if I got any sort of injury i.e knee problems, shin splints, etc because of no impact.

I would like to be able to race (i'd say i'm a pretty competitive person) but for now I don't know if am willing to drop 2 grand on a bike and have it sit there in the corner of my apartment if I spend the next 3 years running for my school...

does anyone else here run? or mix a multitude of sports while in school? ahhhh! i am just so conflicted!

Jakey

Just get a bike!