Originally Posted by Poguemahone
"Your roads are better than ours."
We can argue on the value of suspension, but I'm not sure we can really compare roads. Who knows whose is better? We've got a nice abundance of potholes, sloppy road patchings, and other disasters. I don't, however, ride on a bus route, but on the occasions I wander downtown am amazed by the damage those monsters do over a good winter. I do, however, have a nice deep 2' x 4' pothole in front of my house, which is on a low traffic street. I just haven't managed to hit it on a bike yet, mostly because I know it's there. My current commute takes me over a railroad crossing, a brick paved street (monument Ave), and a succesion of metal plates placed atop the street surface rather sloppily, in addition to the potholes/repairs. But I still wouldn't ride a suspension bike on them-- I'll just steer around them.
While you can steer around the occasional pavement irregularity, there's nothing you can do when significant stretches of the entire road is irregular. But I agree that shocks are not needed for
most road-biking (I don't have shocks). Spigot will just have to check his road conditions and buy the appropriate bike. If the roads are mostly good, shocks are a waste of money and energy.