Road Cycling - Need advice, keep or get a new bike...

Hey all, I'm brand new here. Looks to be a great forum. So I would like to pick your brains.

My last bike (it's okay to laugh) was a Wal-Mart special. I paid $65.00 for it and put 1500 miles on it before it self destructed. So, after drooling over some better bikes, I went back to Wal-Mart and picked up another bike. This time, I laid out, I don't know, $68.00. I've put some miles on it, but they aren't as pleasurable as I imagine. The brakes sometimes drag (for the life of me, I can't get them to feel right), the crank feels pretty loose, and let's face it, she's no light weight.

But when she drops to the ground I don't cry. When I trailer the kids, and she gets scratched up, I couldn't care less. I never worry about locking her up or slamming over curbs, into potholes, etc.

If I do what I think I'm going to do, and lay out a grand for this hot little momma I eyed today, I WILL cry if she drops to the ground, or gets scratched, or whatever.

My thought, is to keep big momma around for the trails and the trailering. Use sweet, hot, high dollar momma on the road, when I'm alone, enjoying "me time."

But what about the rough road? What about the potholes, etc? Will a decent road bike (I'm thinking Cannondale) take some of this abuse? Or am I asking for trouble?

Thanks in advance.

:beer:

Yeah.. A decent bike will take some road abuse.. If the roads in your area are real rough, you might want to look at some nice bullet proof wheels. I have hit many a pothole on my baby (though I definitely try not to), and have even had her on *gasp* a dirt rode (the damn thing just turned to dirt, about 5 miles from where I turned onto it, DOH!), and everything is just fine.

Just make sure you do proper maintnance. If the roads in your area are really bumpy, you might want to teach yourself the art of trueing a wheel.

A good bike will handle WAY more abuse than any Walmart POS... all of the components will be much stronger AND it will be assembled correctly which increases the life expectancy about 20x over that of a Walmart bike. After the first scratch you probably will stop caring.