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06-24-03, 12:08 AM
After bike shopping and driving my wife crazy for the past month I finally made up my mind, threw out my budget, and bought my first road bike. It was both fun and educational trying out so many diffrerent bikes, talking to people at several shops in southern WI (we have great roads for biking here, BTW!), and reading everything I could find in mags and online.
Anyway, I bought a Gunnar "Roadie" (http://www.gunnarbikes.com/ ) frame, and will have my LBS build it up with 105 components. It's not one of the household names in bike brands, but after riding a couple of them and comparing them to the others bikes rode, I am pretty comfortable making this choice for myself. Most of you probably know the Gunnar frames are made by Waterford up here in WI (about 30 miles from my home.) After I ordered the bike from my LBS, I made a trip over to the factory to check out colors and ended up getting a tour of the place by the owner. Interesting! I should have the bike next week, after I get back from a short family trip. I can't wait!
I'm a bit of an obsessive shopper once I get the idea that I'm going to buy something significant. I tend to research pretty intensively and agonize over my options. I feel like I learned a lot over the past 4-5 weeks. I took time to visit 6 different shops (a couple of them twice) and rode a lot of bikes at around the same price point: Trek 2000 & 2300, LeMond Buenos Aires & Alpe d'Huez, Bianchi Vigorello, Cannondale R800 and R1000, Specialized Allez elite, comp and Sequoia, Giant OCR1. I went with the Gunnar.
Since my local bike guy is building it and fitting it for me I have lots of options. I've decided to go with a 53/39 double with a 12/25 cassette, a carbon fiber fork, 25c tires and double butted spokes. The shop is willing to change the crank to a triple if I don't like the double after a few weeks. I've also got to get my first clipless pedals (uh oh). I'm buying SPD pedals and will put the cleats on my Specialized MTB shoes to start out. That's sort of the story here... It will be interesting to see how this feels after a few hours on the road! I've been riding about 100-140 a week on my Trek 7200 and hope to increase that now.
Anyway, thanks for listening, and for the help with my earlier questions! Any advice is always welcome.
Anyway, I bought a Gunnar "Roadie" (http://www.gunnarbikes.com/ ) frame, and will have my LBS build it up with 105 components. It's not one of the household names in bike brands, but after riding a couple of them and comparing them to the others bikes rode, I am pretty comfortable making this choice for myself. Most of you probably know the Gunnar frames are made by Waterford up here in WI (about 30 miles from my home.) After I ordered the bike from my LBS, I made a trip over to the factory to check out colors and ended up getting a tour of the place by the owner. Interesting! I should have the bike next week, after I get back from a short family trip. I can't wait!
I'm a bit of an obsessive shopper once I get the idea that I'm going to buy something significant. I tend to research pretty intensively and agonize over my options. I feel like I learned a lot over the past 4-5 weeks. I took time to visit 6 different shops (a couple of them twice) and rode a lot of bikes at around the same price point: Trek 2000 & 2300, LeMond Buenos Aires & Alpe d'Huez, Bianchi Vigorello, Cannondale R800 and R1000, Specialized Allez elite, comp and Sequoia, Giant OCR1. I went with the Gunnar.
Since my local bike guy is building it and fitting it for me I have lots of options. I've decided to go with a 53/39 double with a 12/25 cassette, a carbon fiber fork, 25c tires and double butted spokes. The shop is willing to change the crank to a triple if I don't like the double after a few weeks. I've also got to get my first clipless pedals (uh oh). I'm buying SPD pedals and will put the cleats on my Specialized MTB shoes to start out. That's sort of the story here... It will be interesting to see how this feels after a few hours on the road! I've been riding about 100-140 a week on my Trek 7200 and hope to increase that now.
Anyway, thanks for listening, and for the help with my earlier questions! Any advice is always welcome.