how did this turn into a debate about houses anyways? ... sometimes I spend too much time looking for good deals when I could have just spent that time working some overtime and making far more than the time spent trying to find a good deal. That's something I plan to work on. With low dollar items where we're talking a savings of $20-100 here and there, I'd be better off just going to work and not worrying about the price...

But I have to spend the time researching the quality of the brand first... to see where it's made (I avoid china and lean towards USA, Japan, and Europe) and things of that sort. I went in blind my first time, not knowing too much about what to get besides frame size based on standover height, a quick test ride, and knowing about 'shimano 105' stuff.

In the end it doesn't much matter where a bike is assembled though, since all the parts basically come from the same places outside the US mostly. I could build it myself and it would be 'made in the usa' from foreign parts.