If you have the time and expertise, a used bike is a good value. If you don't know what you're looking at, it could be a waste of time and money.

Bike shop bikes start at $400 or $500, and they are worth it. The quality is markedly better than big box store bikes (which we call bike shaped objects or BSO's) or even mail order bikes from Amazon and the like. Also, bike shops assemble bikes properly. Assembling a bike properly isn't hard, but doing it wrong is even easier, and there are more than a dozen opportunities to mess up. There are many little details that make a big difference with a bike. A bike is very light weight compared with the duty it performs, so performance is critical. A badly tuned bike is much harder and less pleasant to ride than a properly tuned bike..