Originally Posted by
Doug64
The point of all this BS, FWIW, is reiterating what most folks have already said-- get a good bike, ride it enough to figure out what you really need or want. Then go get it. However, you might be surprised to find out it does not have to the "best". As someone said "it is not about the bike".
This too.
One reason to start out a bit "cheaper" is that you don't know what you prefer until you get experience. If you decide you want/need to upgrade after a year or so, you'll likely be able to sell your first bike and you'll be better able to know what you want.
One advantage of going cheaper is that cheaper is cheaper to replace when stuff happens.
If you have peculiar fit problems, you might need to go custom but, if you don't, many, many riders have proven that standard production bikes are good enough.