Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
First road bike? I just unboxed and tuned up a Windsor Wellington 3 bike from Bikesdirect.com for a new roadie. $400 shipped. Great starter bike.
On your first bike, you will get the wrong frame size. And you will crash it. It will tip over at some point, or fall off the rack on your vehicle. And when you start wrenching, you will do something dumb such as crush the carbon top tube in the bench vice.
And after about a year, you will eventually want different components than the stock, after riding friends bikes. For example after riding Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo shifters, you will figure out why the Shimano shifters are a distant third in terms of ergonomics. So think as your first bike as an experiment. So don't spend a lot. Ride as many different bikes as you can first.
And, all of the bikes you named are 'big brand' models. Solid, conservative choices, but you'll pay a significant premium over lesser known brands.
Finally, if you ride in a Fondo, with the choices above, you may find some comfort in that you will see hundreds of your same bike on the road.
OP test rode all these bikes at LBS. He spent over $2000 on the Synapse. Do you really think the LBS didn't fit him for the bike? I've been riding rode for 3 years, and bikes in general for 30 years and never crashed. You can't say it's inevitable that someone is going to crash their bike.
Spending $2000 I think it is much less likely they will want to upgrade components after a year. If you buy a cheap bike like the Wellington which weighs about 25 lbs and has Sora or Claris than you will want to upgrade quickly. The whole point of spending money up front on a nicer bike is you wont' feel the need to upgrade