Try a bike off Craigs List. If you know how to haggle you can get a pretty good bike for less than a grand. Ride it for a couple of months, tinker with it and then resell it for about the same money. Learn what you like and don't like.
MTB Magazine also just published a list of 7 FS bikes for $2K and less. The Scott Spark 50 was the lightest and seemed well equipped.
BUT it has so much white on it that someone like BN will steal it.
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I think its disgusting and terrible how people treat Lance Armstrong, especially after winning 7 Tour de France Titles while on drugs!
I can't even find my bike when I'm on drugs. -Willie N.