[QUOTE=Buglady]The other thing is that I've yet to see a road bike under $800 here (and that was an aluminum frame that I wouldn't trust as far as I could spit it). Generally they are running $1500-2000 for the "starter" bikes...

I am quite happy pouring a few to several hundred bucks into an older bike when I am looking at that kind of price differential!

Not to hijack this thread, but I had to reply to this. I have an 05 Aluminum $800 dollar bike that currently has over 5000 miles on it, and it shows no signs of fatigue whatever. I am sure it has many thousands of miles left in it. Actually there are quite nice new road bikes in the $600 dollar price range (Trek 1000, Giant OCR3). You may not like them as well as the older stuff, but that doesn't make them of less quality.