Originally Posted by goenrdoug

Congrats! You're going to love that bike.

Regarding the saris carrier. I had one of those and found out the hard way that one should put a rag between the contact points and the bike.

Also, flip it around so you can put the seat-tube in the third tie-down that's there for the purpose.

Finally, I also found it useful to use the extra ropes/straps to secure my front wheel to the down-tube so the bars/wheel wouldn't rotate/flop around int he wind.

Here's the best picture I could find on the internet to describe what i mean:

Originally Posted by goenrdoug

yep. I'd suggest getting some good BIB shorts, settle on some double-sided pedals (like SPEEDPLAY) and shoes to go with.. That'll take you through your next couple of lengthy-research purchases.

As for the saris thing, yeah, after transporting the bike on it for a while, I notices some rubbing happening, damaging my finish.. Nothing terrible, but I started wrapping an old rag in there before strapping it down.. and using the extra straps to secure the wheel toe the down-tube will avoid the bars/front wheel whipping around in the wind on the back of the car...

You'll be trusting your life to this bike at some point, going 40-50+ mph.. You don't want to be thinking about whether or not that one time the bars were flopping around like crazy on the back of the car might have damages the top tube... Tie it down.

Originally Posted by Armyguy1914

⁹Thanks everyone for your advice and wisdom I went ahead and got that 2017 Emonda S 5 I did get it for 900 now I'm gonna take it to Trek and have it set up to me.

Originally Posted by Armyguy1914

Yeah I went on my first ride today. I was able to get some good speed them some hills kick my butt I was low gears so it was hard going up Hill until I put in easy gear until I got to top. I ordered 2 jerseys and 2 padded shorts off Ebay. They worked pretty good to.

Originally Posted by Maelochs

One myth sold to everyone by Shimano and the rest of the bike industry was this whole "upgrade" saga. They realized that their products would last for years and outperform most riders ... so why would anyone give the companies any money once they bought a bike?

So, the "upgrades" ....

I took an Ultegra derailleur off a bike and replaced it with 105 because I was getting a weird clicking and I wanted to make sure everything was checked out and operating perfectly so I could track down the noise (still haven't. ) Once I found out the noise wasn't coming from a bent derailleur, I could have swapped the Ultegra back in ... but honestly I couldn't tell a difference, so why? I have 4500 and 4600 Tiagra on a couple bikes and I could throw a 105 drive train (in boxes on shelves, already purchased) on either ... but why?

Most of us are already riding bikes which work better than the bikes the Tour de France winners rode two decades ago .... and many of us, bikes functionally equivalent to the winners' bikes from five or six years ago ... or even more recent. It's like we can buy Formula One cars and ride them on the street.

How many of us are really using our bikes to their absolute maximum levels of performance? Half a percent? Considering these bike good enough to meet the needs of the top half-percent of competitive riders in the world .....

But having a bike like that only generates income once for a company ... so ....

This sometimes arises in discussions here. If I am 10X pounds overweight, how many dollars should I spend to save 10x grams? A lighter wheelset? $800 to save 300 grams ... but I am 40 pounds overweight (well, more actually.) So in overall weight of bike and rider, I have saved 1/300th? So I will climb every hill in only 299/300ths of the time .... and it only cost me $300. Yahoo.

That carbon wheel set ... well it won't stop well in the rain, but I don't plan to ride in the rain (of course, we never Plan to ... ) and of course, every time I hit the brakes I will be eating up those expensive wheels .... and maybe though they are lighter they are not as stiff as what I had, so there is a net loss of efficiency of power transfer and a lower max cornering speed ... is that offset by the 300-gram savings?

I think everyone will tell you the same thing----don't buy more expensive parts if you want to go faster. Go online, google interval training and hill repeats ... then go do them. Create an organized training schedule and follow it. or, use the tried and true method of trying to keep up with faster riders until you can. If you want performance, it is Rider, not bike. Put Chris Froome on any bike from Walmart and put me on his bike and he will beat me in every race every time ... and by ridiculous margins. He could beat me in a road race on an undersized Walmart mountain bike. It Ain't the Bike.

In fact, when I thought I was going to be doing okay financially a few years back I decided to treat myself. I built up a lightweight CF frame with pretty racy parts---not the over-the-top ridiculous parts, but the completed bike, in showroom trim, was probably under 16 pounds (somewhere near the UCI minimum for World Tour bikes, in other words).

I decided to build an endurance-frame version of the bike, for when my lower back wouldn't tolerate any more miles on the racy frame. And I decided to go with 105 instead of Ultegra. I had the money for Ultegra .... but I didn't see the value. I knew 105 was awesome from using it on another off my bikes, and I couldn't justify spending a few hundred more for whatever the difference in performance might be---possibly entirely placebo.

You make your choices. You might have to spend the money on the exotic parts and such, and then come back here five years from now telling other new riders "Don't fall for that 'upgrade' line." Whatever is right for you.

Any of the bikes you have suggested here would be more bike than you would need unless you were in the top one percent of riders in the world .... and even then, they'd never let you down, it'd just be that you'd ride the bikes your sponsors gave you.

I suggest you buy a good bike and Ride it. You want to mess with it? Try different tires when the old ones wear out. Find the perfect saddle, the perfect pedals, the perfect shoes. More important, find the perfect set-up---and then change it to keep it perfect as your body adapts. Change the bar tape. Get super-light bottle cages (I found some at the old (defunkt) Nashbar, 26 grams for ten dollars.)

Get a GPS (I use my phone and Ride with GPS and Strava, both free of charge) and track every ride. Watch whether attacking a particular hill is faster than hitting it more slowly and holding a steadier pace ... until you can storm all the way up it with full power. Try different cadences to see what your body likes and what is actually faster or slower. Lay out routes in your area with a lot of climbing, or do climbing loops, and then lay out routes which are flatter for recovery days and distance days. Set aside one day a week (or every two weeks, whatever) for exploring and ride to some place you've never gone before.

Try different energy bars and gels, or mixtures of dried fruit and nuts, or bananas and peanut butter sandwiches ... try different sports drinks or whatever ... find out how to keep your body fueled and hydrated at different times of the year.

There is so much to cycling that doesn't cost hardly any money once you have bought the basics ... and you can still have the fun of comparison shopping and analyzing different products and methods.

When I thought I was going to have good cash flow, I shopped frequently and got boxes shipped to me at least weekly ... then things changed and I decided I am not buying anything but tubes and tires and chain lube. Riding is Exactly as much fun. And the cost is almost zero.

Get a good bike. Ride your good bike.

Or whatever else you choose to do ... I am not giving orders, just relating stories.