Well I'm not exactly the kind of person that would be able to assemble it, but my brother and or stepdad would. So if I only took it into a shop for an initial tune-up and to make sure everythings working right, I'd still save alot of money right? Which is really what i'm most interested at this point.
I'll still go into a few shops though and look at their bikes. I've been to one thats mostly a road bike shop and their entry levels had mostly sora for like 750-900 and maybe a carbon fork if i was lucky so i mean.. bikes direct is looking nice at this point.