Originally Posted by Retro Grouch

In years past, I rode some pretty marginal bikes (I wish that my first tandem had a Hi-Ten frame) but they were the best that I could afford at the time and I was on the road having fun. What's "not good" about that?

Road biking can be a pretty unforgiving sport. If your bike's not good enough, people skoff. If your bike is too good for the speed that you are able to ride, people skoff. Wrong clothes, people skoff. If you completely match your jersey, shorts, helmet and bike, people skoff. You'll never satisfy the skoffers so you might as well satisfy yourself. The nice thing about my crummy bike era was that I learned to ignore the skoffers.