Does this seem like a good deal for a first road/endurance bike?
For context, I am a mountain biker looking to get into long distance biking primarily on greenways. I am a little over 6'2 tall.
Since my experience is primarily with mountain biking I am feeling super out of my element shopping for a road bike without breaking the bank. I would really appreciate any advice you all have on this. Thanks!
by CrawfordCrawford
3 Comments
Not a good deal at all. A very bad deal. It’s at least 14 years old and has a low end groupset, cheapo stock wheels, and it’s rim brake
To add a bit, what the other guys say is true. With that said, this is the exact bike I ride. I tour with this bike and probably have fifty thousand kilometers on it. So maybe it doesn’t have the best group set, and doesn’t have disc brakes, which is true. But it still works like a champ! Personally, I’d like a newer better bike for many reasons. But for me, it’s hard to justify spending another $4000 to $6000 when this bike does the job just fine.. This bike has taken me to more places than most people who spend thousands on a bike.
You can save a fortune by getting a nice vintage/retro steel road bike and cleaning it up. Modern road bikes are approaching vintage geometry at this point (when it comes to fork clearance, wheelbase, and slack). Road bikes do not benefit from modern tech nearly as much as mountain bikes. They just don’t go through the same kind of abuse and stress to warrant it. You don’t need disc brakes, you don’t need electronic shifting, you don’t need carbon, etc. Companies push tech really hard to sell more bikes, and it’s not in the interest of actual cyclists looking to spend their hard-earned money. I personally ride a frankenbike with parts ranging over a seventy year span. It rides like a dream. It cost me nothing because I got it by trading a custom frame I had to its original builder, but you could easily do the same build for under $500.