Posted: 3/10/2014 12:56:14 PM EDT
| Looking to buy a bicycle. Haven't owned one since a cheap mountain bike I bought at Sears in Hawaii while in the Corps. It will mainly be used to ride the silver comet trail. Any suggestions? I'm on the west side. |
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Looking to buy a bicycle. Haven't owned one since a cheap mountain bike I bought at Sears in Hawaii while in the Corps. It will mainly be used to ride the silver comet trail. Any suggestions? I'm on the west side. I was in your shoes last year. I was deciding between a road bike and a sport fit bike. I ended up with a sport fit bike (a Canondale Quick SL1) from Atlanta Cycling. I bought it in June so the model was on clearance and saved a few hundred dollars. You may be able to get some really good deals still on some clearance models. I think that REI has quite a few bikes on clearance. I went with the sport fit bike since it is slightly more flexible than a pure road bike, but the SL1 has road bike gearing so it can sort of keep up with the road bikes. |
| I cant stress this enough, how the bike fits you is more important that anything. A $10k bike that doesnt fit properly wont hold a candle to a $1k bike that does. A few years ago I went from a 52cm frame to a 54cm and that made a huge difference in comfort. BTW 54cm is the length of the top tube from seat post to steering stem. Go to a reputable bike shop and have them fit you to a frame. |
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Quoted: If you buy a new started bike that isn't a giant pile of walmart crap, expect to spend 500$. A good bike show can "fit" you to a bike, and it does make a substantial difference. |
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I've been to three bike shops ITP. none of them did anything but say you need this bike. No fitting or anything. One shop asked how tall I was and said I need a medium framed bike. Looked at a trek and a Fuji. Leaning towards the Fuji. Quoted:
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If you buy a new started bike that isn't a giant pile of walmart crap, expect to spend 500$. A good bike show can "fit" you to a bike, and it does make a substantial difference. There isn't a whole lot to fit, granted they should tell you more than frame size. Its a combination of frame size, post height, saddle angle, bar height, reach and angle. The bike shop I'v used has gone out of business, which does such. I prefer specialized, and according to their website, Peachtree bikes and Roswell bikes should have someone that can fit you. However I'm not sure if that has any sort of fee attached to it. |
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Fitting generally is not done free. My LBS charges $200, and it takes roughly two hours. They tweak cleat position, stem position, saddle height and lots of other things. They put you on a trainer, and analyze your stroke, cadence and such.
You should be able to get the proper frame size based on what is available on the net. I'm 6', and ride a 56 cm specialized. |
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Most bike shops are no different than the average gun shop. Know it all dicks who make you feel bad for not wanting to spend a ton of money on bs. Bikes are they're passion not mine
I ended up buying a cannondale that originally was a $1500 plus bike for $400 on Craigslist. I spent another $200 on new brakes, tires, and a tune up (ebay parts) Found a gem of a shop in johns creek called the bicycle wheel. I could tell by talking to them on the phone they were good people and the work they did was fair and upfront. They also stock a lot of new $300-600 bikes since that's what a lot of bike shops ignore. |
| I was at one off north Druid hills rd today. Took 10-15 minutes for a sales dude to come over. I was the only one in the shop. I started off by telling him what I was going to do with it and my budget. The first thing he shows me is some $1000.00 bike, I kinda chuckled and reminded him of my price point. He kinda got helpful after that. |
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I bought a used hybrid two years ago. It didn't take me long to figure out that it wasn't light enough or fast enough for the Silver Comet. I wanted to ride too many miles. I ended up at Roswell Bike in March of 2013 and bought a Raleigh Revenio 3.0. I spent more money than I intended, but the buyers remorse lasted about 5 minutes into my first ride. I love it.
Get fitted properly. I have had great experiences with Roswell Bike and generally very good experiences with Performance Bike in Kennesaw. My wife and both of my daughters now ride, too. The kids have hybrids and the wife has a Fuji road bike. Performance has some outstanding deals right now on last years models. It is a great time to buy a bike. Beware, you will start spending money like crazy on accessories and shit that you just have to have. |