livedarklions

I ride the hell out of a set of bikes I'm sure my now-ignored friend would label as POS. It's a phrase that when wielded as an insult of other people's bikes is a great cue that nothing from the person posting it is going to be worth reading. I think I've used it on BF to describe a bike I got rid of, but would never use it to describe something someone else was recommending or riding.

Flat-bar road bikes are a blast, I'm giving mine to my son as a reward for losing enough weight to ride it, but to tell you the truth, I'm going to miss it. I'm probably replacing it with an old Raleigh 3 speed so I have one bike that isn't drop bar, but I'm really buying it as a nostalgia machine. I grew up riding ones I bought for almost nothing at garage sales.

RH Clark

To the OP. I haven't read all the replies. My best advice is you are just going to have to learn ,I have been and continue to do so. My general approach to anything I don't know much about is to test the waters cheaply before I jump in expensively. My first serious bike in this journey was an old Giant Rincon rigid steel frame. I guess I put 200 miles on that $50 bike just learning I needed a bigger bike. I changed the front ring gears by hand because the derailleur was broken. I eventually got it working with a piece of plumbing wire and some pliers. The bolt that held the cage together had gone missing. I straightened the cage and wired it back.

I am not looking at buying my 5th bike. I ride the other 4 still or a family member rides them fairly often. I have less than $400 in all 4. I am just now getting to the point where I have ridden enough, and on enough different style bikes to make a better decision about a really expensive bike over $1K . I am even buying one more next week but I can use the experience on that style bike and always sell it later for very close to what I paid.

Just buy a good name whatever. Make sure you can ride it and buy it. You won't really know for a couple weeks how you like it. You would be better to lose 25 on a bike purchase after you resold it. I think buying and selling would be better than renting any day. You will have a lot more time on a bike for a lot less money and you may even make a few$$. Hope this helps.

Moishe

Hey! Jeezuz h krist, man, I said I was kidding! I still love you and your son. My only point was that Mr. aabb had already decided on a drop-bar road bike and should be respected. And being fabulously wealthy, he can easily afford to change his mind. Peace, my Brother!

altondavis2

If you're new to riding, why are you considering such an expensive bike that only real bikers would consider ???

Doesn't your local bike dealer just set you up with everything that you will need for a test ride ??? including suggestions for
a route ??? helmet, pedals, ????t

Maelochs

The point of this post was what to look for on a test ride. Fifty-five posts later the guy still hasn't taken a test ride. Y'all have fun now, y'hear?

I-Like-To-Bike

"Real Bikers"? They must be the Überbikers who know that drop-bar road biking is vastly superior to anything else done by the unreal lowlifes who are not serious enough.

altondavis2

Test ride until you find one bike that you like. Sounds like you're still looking for the right bike shop.
Once you find the 'right' shop, you'll find the right bike. Buy the shop and then the bike.

By now you should know what brand appeals to you, what shop sells that brand, what salesguy seems
to know his stuff ???

altondavis2

Got a Specialized Diverge Comp E5 for Xmas. Too cold, snowy to ride, but I have managed a few short rides.
Luuuuuuuuuuuving it. The 105 groupset is sooooo smoooooth. Decided to stick with aluminum frame and
stay away from potential problems with carbon. I rode the carbon model with Tiagra, no hydraulics, it didn't feel
as smooth as the lightweight aluminum model. Looking for some premium 35 or 38 tires with a good touring tread.
I normally buy Continentals but am considering Schwalbe Marathons this time.

Moishe

Yeah, this topic has been pretty well covered by now. The Original Poster is gone, apparently having decided to get on with his life.

TheLizard

IDK if the OP is still even looking at this thread, but I'm going to post my adventure in cycling, since I'm in a similar position (after not riding a bike since my youth, I decided to get into riding bikes). This just started the beginning of last summer.

I sold my kayaks because the wife can't kayak any more, so they were sitting idle, and rather than getting another kayak, I decided I would likely use a bike more often, so I started shopping bikes. The funds I got from the two kayaks were not enough to buy the bikes I found at the three LBSs where I looked, so I turned to Craigslist. The prices were much better there.

It was an easy decision for me. I'm pretty mechanically inclined, and was confident I could deal with any adjustments or repairs a used bike would need. Plus, I've got YouTube.

I went through a LOT of bikes. My first one I bought for $5 (missing a chain). It was actually not bad for a heavy-af department store mountain bike. It took me longer to figure out which chain to buy than it did how to actually install it. Incredibly it shifted through the gears as good as it ever would without doing any adjustments. I rode it through the trails near the house, and figured out quickly how crappy and limited it was. Plus, as my wife pointed out, the tires were dry-rotted.

Then I checked out a Raleigh hybrid for sale. OMG THUMB SHIFTERS! I liked those so much better than the twist shifters! It was too big for me though.

My next one was a Giant Sedona. Seemed to be a better fit for me, since I wanted something ok for trails but that worked on the street, and I started eyeing commuting on a bike. It was supposed to be a "comfort" bike. It needed some significant adjustments, but other than that it was fine. For someone else. I hated the upright position, the seat shock looked like a great idea but I did not like it at all. Plus it had those twist shifters which I already decided I didn't like. I gave that to my son and he loves it.

I tried out a Trek Multitrack 720 for a while. Actually a pretty decent bike, but nah. Gave that to my daughter-in-law after replacing the bad freewheel.

This is getting too long. Suffice it to say I went through a LOT of bikes. And lots of bike parts, sometimes to replace bad parts, more often just because I wanted to try out some different components/stems and handlebars/seats/etc. It was a learning experience.

If I had plunked down a big chunk of change for the bike I THOUGHT I wanted when I started I would have been disappointed pretty quickly. Because that wasn't it. It took a lot of riding to find out what worked for me. Through all that I probably spent even more than the OP is planning on, but the learning experience is invaluable.

Pratt

Dirty little secret. You can't buy the perfect bike. Even if you get one that hits all the right notes for: fit, material, geometry, components, gearing, ride, color, etc. (Clearly, if not impossible, highly unlikely) After riding for a season something will be wrong because you will change. You will want to tour less/more; carry more/less; ride on/off road; compete more/less, or you can't stand that color anymore. But that is the beauty of it. You will learn what you want, or even broaden your palate so that, even though you still love the bike you want to mountain bike, tour, cyclocross, track race, etc. so you will need a different bike.
Probably a large part of any rider's day dreams when riding are what they would do to idealize their current mount, or build up a bike for a different style.
But, as has been suggested, just buy something and ride it and you will answer your questions yourself

aabb

What? You have made that conclusion based on what? Me not replying? Fair enough. But why would I reply to this thread or post in this forum in general - especially if I have a question - when a good chunk of long posters will throw around accusations of trolling and wasting their time? And then the thread goes off track as it did for a good chunk of this thread.

livedarklions

Maybe because you started several threads with seemingly inconsistent questions that people who know something about bikes indicate that your decision-making process is backwards? I don't think this thread has drifted much at all, you just don't seem to like the mostly consensus answer. I'm going to try to sum this up for you-- for a beginner, riding some bikes is the beginning of the selection process, not the end. That's in large part because you don't really know how you're going to feel on different kinds of bikes and all the reading in the world can't tell you that. Also, the store will have pedals. You did ask that as well. That indicated that you hadn't even discussed a test ride with someone at a shop.

So, have you actually tried any bikes yet? Basically, if you aren't doing that or planning on it, I suspect you're kidding yourself about your own intentions.

And btw, test rides might not decide between two really good bikes, but they're really good for eliminating bad options. If you do some, you'll find yourself going "oh, hell no" on options that sounded good until you actually tried it.

Moishe

Aabb, by now it should be clear that this little chat group is not the first place you want to go to for information and advice about buying a bike. Or the second, or the third. Folks here tend to be, um, opinionated.

Many of my brothers in biking here simply do not approve of your decision to buy a high-quality endurance road bike. The feeling seems to be that you need to be worthy of such a bike before you’re allowed to buy it, you need to pay your dues. You can’t just walk in off the streets into your local bike shop after an absence of several decades and demand to be sold a nice bike. Most of us here have gone through a long evolution of bikes since we attached baseball cards to the front forks of our three-speeders. I can sort of understand that feeling. I rode my previous just-okay bike for thirty thousand miles and through three expensive bike fittings before I allowed myself a year ago to buy a bike just like the two you’re contemplating, for $3,600, year-end discounted from $5,000. And here you are, jumping the line. The truth is, though, if I could have advised my ten-year-younger self, I would have urged him to spend a lot more and get the better bike, even if it meant incurring finance charges. I could have been riding with Ultegra and internally routed cables all this time.

But it’s really out of love that you are being warned against buying a really, really nice bike that has captured your imagination, and that you can obviously afford since you’ve already budgeted for it. We’re concerned about you. Some of us are worried that you’ll buy an excellent endurance road bike and come to regret it, that you’ll decide you just don’t like being hunched over, that you would prefer mountain biking, or street biking, or gravel biking, or cyclocross. And BMX has also it’s rewards. So perhaps you should consider all those other bikes before you even think about plunking down those Canadian dollars for that Cervelo.

Of course, the danger is that you’ll decide you don’t like ANY kind of biking, and then where are you? You’re gonna have to look further afield. Pilates. Or a screaming spinning class. Maybe a Stairmaster. My adult daughter’s chosen form of exercise is ballet, and she loves it. Perhaps you should head on over to the ballet chat forum and tell them that you’re torn deciding between a pair of mid-priced ballet shoes and a Cervelo C3. See what they suggest.

Or just get the Cervelo or the Domane in a frame size that fits you and be done with it. My guess is that there is only a 90 to 95% probability that you’ll end up liking it a lot for many years. Yes, it’s a risk, but you’re old enough to take it.

Maelochs

People here gave aabb Exactly what he asked for. If he doesn't like the answers, that is on him, not the respondents. And Anyone who would recommend spending huge money (for a bike) on a bike that the person has never ridden has .... questionable ... values.

Nobody here cares what he buys or how much he spends, ultimately. Nobody here knows him, so nobody cares if he wastes his money, buys the wrong bike, hates biking, buys a bike and never rides it ....

None of us know the others. We are all responding Generally. And we all gave approximately the same responses, because those are generally the right responses.

Simply this: TEST-RIDE BEFORE YOU DECIDE.

Anyone who cannot see the logic plain doesn't want to ... or more accurately, sees it but would rather troll.

By the way, @aabb ... ONE poster suggested you might be trolling since you started many inconsistent threads and denied or forgot some of the things you said in different threads. No one outright called you a troll. I suggested that Moishe might be trolling …. But no one called You a troll. So all the fake outrage over that is fake.

People here gave you their best. You didn’t like it. Welcome to the real world … if you ask experts for their opinions, they won’t necessarily be the same as the opinions of people who don’t know much. Not too tough to figure. People here, many who have been riding for longer than you have been alive, have learned some stuff.

Also … All Responses Are General. These are things people have learned that apply Most of the time. Therefore, they will not necessarily apply All the time. But rejecting opinions and acting all hurt because people have learned stuff you haven’t learned is a bad life strategy, in bike-buying and Every aspect of life.

And pretty much always, if you ask for advice about stuff concerning which you know very little, and ask people who know a lot, and then get all pissy because they say different things than you, you won’t get much more advice. Disrespecting people who gave their best is not a great strategy.

Look at some of the other “What bike should I buy” threads which have gone much better … because the people asking, were willing to listen and respond to the people who responded. The OPs did not always agree with what was said, but in most cases were respectful in their disagreement and sensible in their reasons for disagreeing, and made themselves clear, which engendered more cogent responses from the other respondents.

Blaming the world when things don’t go your way … not always a great strategy. Getting upset when people point out inconsistencies in your presentation … rarely improves the situation.

And first and foremost … when you start a thread asking about taking test rides, people tell you a ton of stuff about taking test rides, and then you simply do not take any test rides … something there doesn’t make Any sense. Sorry that other people can spot glaring inconsistencies, but yeah … people can spot glaring inconsistencies.

At this point nobody is sure what you were looking for when you started posting here, but it plainly wasn’t any of the things you actually asked for.

If you don’t come back …. That is your decision. But so far no one here has been rude or insulting … we have just been busy trying to figure out how to help you, since you don’t seem to want help, while you are asking for help.

If you can clarify we can maybe better provide what you seek. Or … whatever.

Weather is beautiful, if maybe a tad chilly … sun is out at least …. Going to actually Ride a Bike … something I and others have suggested you might want to do.

aabb

BRO, what are you even talking about? Me being hurt and upset? 'Welcome to the real world'? What? Me rejecting people's opinions? I never rejected anyone's opinions. I simply had to narrow down my choice of bikes to 4 or so before test riding everything. I was LEARNING information about tires, components and the hierarchy. I am not going to just go out there and test ride.

Holy crap.

'No one is sure what you were looking for'? Well let me summarize it for you: I was first looking at gravel bikes, so I made a thread about Orbea Terra and the Impulso. People made it clear that many endurance bikes with some good tire clearance would do the job on light gravel so that made sense to me. So I now started asking questions about some endurance bikes like the Infinito and Domane. Responses were helpful. So I made this thread asking about test riding as I narrowed it down to those 2 (and 2 others which I didn't mention in this forum).

So I made this thread, and people for some reason SOMEHOW have arrived to the conclusion that I don't know what I am looking for, that I am 'rejecting' their advice? Maybe that I am trolling? What the hell? What advice am I rejecting? I NEVER said piss off I am not test riding. I just wanted to narrow it down to 4 or 5 bikes to test ride.

I am actually mind blown at this point.

Edit: and for the record, I have test ridden some bikes. Did it tell me anything? Nope.

Edit 2: I understand the position of the people who told me to buy a much cheaper bike to see if I even enjoy cycling. Someone suggested the Domane AL 3 I believe, and that bike costs 1.3K CAD I believe. Now, the Cervelo C3 is 3k. The Domane is 3.8k CAD. Yes its a big jump, but for me a difference of 1.5k or 2k is not a great concern. Had the AL 3 cost a few hundred dollars then fair enough, but IT IS almost a 1.5k bike! For only 1.5-2k more I could get so much more bike. Do I really have to suffer with a low end bike for many miles? I dont think so, since money is no objection .

Moishe

Holy crap indeed, Maalox! It would help if you’d at least tone it down a few notches. You don't talk that way to the folk you sleep next to under that bridge, do you? They’d beat the crap out of you.

livedarklions

I got one of my few infractions responding to that guy's rant once, none of my business but probably a good idea you two just don't interact.

It's really not a "SOMEHOW" thing, it's that there's really good reasons why someone who hasn't ridden a bike in decades really doesn't have knowledge to know what they should be looking for in a bike. I base that on my own experience and that I've witnessed in other people who came to the activity either as a total beginner or after many years off. The issue is that the feel and fit of a bicycle is going to vary so much by individual rider that none of us can predict how the bike will feel for you. You've narrowed the field down to 4 bikes, and you may have some very good reasons for believing those SHOULD be the bikes for you. That's fine, try all 4 of them out. The test ride probably can't tell you which will feel best to you in 6 months, but it will tell you whether you can enjoy or at least tolerate riding the bike now.

I really hope you won't go away. At this point, I'm really curious how your sense of these bikes on a test ride compares to your expectations.

I have seen people who found riding far more difficult than they expected and others that found it much easier. I've actually had both experiences because I tried it at different fitness levels after long lay-offs. If these test rides go poorly for you, I would then encourage you to try some different kind of bike.

Moishe

Yep. Hand me some of that.

wolfchild

Never ask random strangers to choose your bike for you...What you need to do, is to visit few different bike shops to try out different bikes and then choose the bike that fits you, fits your riding style, fits your budget, satisfies your riding needs and the one that you like.

Jim from Boston

Test Riding and what to look for as a complete beginner

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maelochs

....Anyone who would recommend spending huge money (for a bike) on a bike that the person has never ridden has .... questionable ... values.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aabb

BRO, what are you even talking about?... I understand the position of the people who told me to buy a much cheaper bike to see if I even enjoy cycling.

Someone suggested the Domane AL 3 I believe, and that bike costs 1.3K CAD I believe. Now, the Cervelo C3 is 3k. The Domane is 3.8k CAD.

Yes its a big jump, but for me a difference of 1.5k or 2k is not a great concern. Had the AL 3 cost a few hundred dollars then fair enough, but IT IS almost a 1.5k bike! For only 1.5-2k more I could get so much more bike.

Do I really have to suffer with a low end bike for many miles? I dont think so, since money is no objection .

I have previously posted on several threads, e.g.:↓↓↓↓

Jim from Boston

ɅɅɅɅ.:

canadian deacon

****

By the way have you considered a good chain lube?

TheLizard

Wait WAIT!

Are you telling me there are different kinds of chain lube?

livedarklions

Two kinds--whatever I use, and the other crappy crap.