Road bike under $500?

Pick one you like the look of, go ride it. Any of the old bikes with the downtube shifters, they will shift fine, people rode and raced those for a long time, they are simple and dependable, but the ergonomic drawbacks are there. Also those older bikes will have poorer brakes, but set up well with new pads, they will be OK. The older bikes with threaded forks will be harder to source different stems if you want to play with the fit. The older bars will be less ergonomic too, but I’d ride em

Fit is the most important thing (all those bikes look like different sizes, you gotta figure out what you need), that and don’t buy a bike that needs a lot of work. I like the steel ones :-0 That purple giant looks suhweet. I would avoid the nishiki (looks junky), and the silver giant looks sus