Hello all. My riding season last year was unfortunately cut short after a lady in a Jeep decided to only look one way before pulling out of the local supermarket, crushing the front of my beloved 2014 Trek DS 8.4. Now that the weather's getting better and my broken wrist/elbow have healed up pretty much fully, I'm looking into replacing her. My only dillema: nobody seems to make a bike like this anymore!
For context, I live in Michigan, and do 90% paved riding. However, when you consider the relative quality of our roads and sidewalks, pure road bikes are an absolute chore to ride. I really liked the dual sport for its versatile 3x gearset, comfy suspension, and tires that were capable enough for smooth patches of road while also letting me stay on the bike whenever there's a little dirt in the way. There's also a lot of gravel trails around the state I'd love to still be able to ride whenever I can convince my girlfriend to get something more capable than that Specialized road bike pictured next to my wreck. Ideally, I'd like to keep as much of the capability of my old bike while also ideally shedding a little bit of weight to be a bit more efficient on the road.
I went around to most of the various LBS's in my area and test rode as many bikes as I could find, and am kinda stumped. I liked the comfort of the Trek Marlin, but the gearing was so low that I felt maxed out way too early. Most store associates have been recommending gravel bikes, but it's hard for me to get around the general lack of suspension on most of them. A lot of them are also limited in terms of gearing, either being too tall with not enough low-end or too low with not enough high-end. The Canyon Grizl 7 seems to be about exactly what I want, but they're out of stock in my size and nobody around me seems to have one available used. The Giant Revolt Advanced 2 was the best geared bike I tested, but that $2600 is a tough swallow and I was still feeling the lack of suspension. I liked the Specialized Diverge with the small post suspension quite a bit, though again they're hard to find around me. I don't really have a hard budget, but considering I scored the DS for $350 used, I'm not really looking to drop used-car money to replace it.
I'm currently lined up to pick up that yellow Trek Checkpoint ALR5 for $800 on Friday, since I liked the ALR4 I test rode quite a bit and the 5 has the good Shimano 105 gearset. Though, I'm still a little unsure if it would be worth it to hold out for something like the Canyon or Specialized to become available.
Thoughts?
by Outlaw25