this comment is not geared toward every member on here. There are many who read the threads I started and choose not to comment, because they either understand where I'm coming from or because they don't feel the need to troll. There are others who provide useful advice or some seem to understand my position, like DangerousDAn, looking at his last comment above. I completely agree with you, I misspoke. I did not buy a race bike. This thing wouldn't come close to even the last guy in an amateur race...neither would I at 220lb bodyweight even on a $10,000 Specialized CF bike. Yes, my goal was to bike a very good looking bike, at less the weight of my current 38lb hybrid, with an aggressive riding position, sturdy, given my bodyweight, so the aluminum construction suits me, and the race looks were important to me. I'm so busy with other stuff that I don't know if I'll ride it more than 30 miles per year.
Anyway, what I learned about the bicycle community is that many are a bunch of snobs. I traveled thousands of miles on my motorcycle in 2 countries and met many bikers and car / RV travelers and everyone was cool, down to earth, even the guys on Harleys, who sometimes snob the Japanese motorcycles, were cool with me, waived on the road, were glad to chat in parking lots, gas stations. In the real world, most people are very polite with me and refrain from being snobbish. Users like Eric F are the epitome of the bicycle snob. I don't take comments like his seriously. I roll with the fighting crowd, with guys whose cauliflower-shaped ears and the stare do the talking for them. Most of them don't ride bicycles, they have no energy left to do so. If you'll see a guy like that on a Eurobike (another one at my gym just got one), I guarantee you ain't gonna talk smack to him about his bicycle, or you'll be embedded into yours like a pretzel. I could care less if some tooth-pick shaped snobby bicyclist talks to me from his high horse, because I know that at the end of the day, if I met him in the street on my XC7000 and asked him in person, eye to eye, what he thinks about my cheap Chinese race-bike knockoff, he'll provide a completely different response than on here, because his health and safety are his concern
I guess that's the beauty of the Internet, free speech, anyone can say anything and everything to each other....that's the way it should be, probably. but that also means that a person is two-faced. you'll be all brave and giggly behind a keyboard, but you'll keep your mouth shut in a dark alley