Buying a Road Bike

I thought I should take a moment to document my experience in making what was my single most expensive  purchase this year, and naturally also my biggest expense in regards to the tri.  

I bought a road bike, and I learn a few things in the process, so I thought I could share the story.          

When I first started looking into road bikes this spring they were all too expensive and the options to difficult to understand.  I knew it would probably help me go faster, but I wasn't about to drop a lot of cash on something I had no idea about.  I also currently own a moderate hybrid bike (so I could still practice without making a purchase).

A little later I learned that there are three different price points in most brands of road bikes.  A good description of what that means here, scroll to mid page to read the bike part.  The bottom line price in any of these bike brands is around $800 (when you account for tax and so on), which was near the tippy top of my spending bracket.  I didn't like the idea of spending a lot for a little, so I shelved the new bike idea.

I got tipped off by the roommate to the idea of searching on craigslist, but didn't quite know what to look for before navigating the endless list of ads.  Tony introduced me to his friend, Mark, who works at a bike shop and he taught me the ropes and showed me what to look for.

The hardest thing to figure out was sizing - the good news is that if you are close enough you can usually make adjustments, since I was looking in the used market I knew I might be going for close enough.  I had my bike friend Mark size me at a 19in frame size. I was glad to have a friend help me, but an easy way to figure out if a bike fits you is to stand on the ground over the bar of the frame and lifting the bike up to you.  If you can lift it more than an inch it is too small, and if it is less than an inch too large.  Obviously, if you can't stand over the bike with your feet still on the ground - too large.  Once I knew I needed a 19 inch (plus or minus an inch) frame I was able to pre-screen out a lot of bikes.

The cool thing about shopping for used bikes is that there are quite of good finds, but you will have to filter out a lot of others.  Bikes are a little like boats, people buy them with great intentions, but sometimes they just sit in the garage.  I was able to weed out most of the "bad eggs" simply by following a few simple "rules".

• Seems obvious but I looked for bikes that were being labeled as "road" bikes as opposed to commuter or touring.  
• Stick to recognizable brands : Specialized, Trek, Fuji, Cannondale, Surly and Terry is a good list but there are others.
• Staying with bikes under 10 years old
• Shimano brand gearing (which is fairly standard - other options might be okay too)
• 3 front gears minimum, 8 back gears minimum. (or at least a 24 speed)  
• Curved handle bars

This list alone shortened my list of possibilities quite significantly.  From there I looked for added features, such as clipless pedals and tribars.  I ended up trying out two bikes.  A Terry at $550, which I liked, but had two different size tires, which was really weird and I felt it was too small.  I also tried out a Fuji originally priced at $950, which was notably outside my price range, but was clearly in excellent condition, so I thought it was worth a test ride.

 
The test ride proved very successful and I learned that the bike was top of the line parts and materials.  Spoiler alert: I bought it.  Had I purchased a comparable bike new it would have been $1350 to $1500 in price.  Granted this one was 8 years old, but most of that time it had sat in a garage, and it was well maintained.  Also, I was able to negotiate them down $850, which is almost like a $650 savings (almost).  It came with tribars as well, but not clipless pedals.  Since $850 is still a pretty expensive purchase for me, the clipless pedals will have to wait for now.

As I said earlier, I've been in a bit of debate about this purchase.  I don't exactly have money to throw around, but I had a couple cash influxes that helped with this.  I also think I sort of "deserve" get a "reward" for all my training.  I was going to treat myself to a fancy lululemon run outfit, but I found some great deals on cheaper run clothing at marshalls, so I think this bike will fit the bill.   :)

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Unrelated blog update: I deleted the Disqus comment app on this blog, because it was giving at least a few would be commenters grief.  Unfortunately, this deleted the comments along with it and I'm still in the process of figuring out how to retrieve those as they still exist on the disqus site itself.  Oh technology *sigh*