Originally Posted by
Roopull
My point wasn't about the price of the bike vs. the price of the truck... or even that the goofball didn't have any rack for the thing (My bike is probably worth the same as my car.) It was that he was a complete freakin' novice, wasn't in the physical condition to ride and didn't even have a clue where to ride. Yet, here he is with a high dollar racing bike.
My theory on this is that he knew he was getting out of shape & found walking and running to be unenjoyable. He sees guys on bikes & figures that looks much more comfortable, and those guys on bikes are skinny, so he wants to try it out. So, he goes to the LBS to see what he can find.
Instead of being set up with a bike suitable for a beginner (doesn't rightly matter if it's a $5000 bike or $500,) they put him on what's probably the most expensive bike they can find - even though they KNOW a racing bike is NOT the proper bike for him. The reason he wasn't on a $5000 bike suitable for a beginner is that no such animal exists that I know of outside of custom jobs.
Predatory Bike Shops combined with elitist bike snobs do more to harm the "sport" of cycling than anything...
What do you consider appropriate for a beginner, a child's bike with training wheels? There are different levels of beginner. My interpretation of this thread is OP has never owned a drop bar road bike. You seem to be acting like he's never ridden a bike before. I had been riding bikes for about 30 years before I bought my first road bike. I already had a pretty good handle on staying upright and understanding how a bike handles. The first road bike I bought had "race geometry". I've since upgraded to an even more aggressive twitchy frameset and I have yet to crash my bike and I'm willing to bet that if and when that happens it's not going to be because I can't handle my bike. If someone can ride a bike they should be able to ride any bike, it's not rocket science here.