I think fastbartender was joking around there a bit. Even though there are no emoticons, I have a feeling...

But back to the OP,
Even the the Saeco C'dale is a bit rich for someone without 6 months living expenses socked away but it's way better than the stuff he's looking at, even with 20% off, or whatever he's getting.

Santaria, you need a steady diet of Clark Howard and Dave Ramsey podcasts.

For one bike and one bike alone, I'd pick the Black Ops Pugsley, and two wheelsets: one 26" fatty and a 29" not-so-fatty. Fat tires are reputedly super fun both summer (off road) and winter (duh, snow), and for ice you could mount studded tires on the 29er wheels, or 29" slicks in the summer for road riding (I'd go with 2.35" Big Apples personally; great suspension with a fast, smooth roll).

Dirt drops or a Surly open bar up front, disc brakes, an IGH would be nice but really expensive for two wheelsets so probably just a 1x8 external derailleur setup. It'll take a rack, and fenders to fit 29er tires, or even full fat tire fenders with some applied awesomeness. Not the most practical bike, maybe, but the most fun.

I just scanned this discussion, didnt read it all every word. I got into biking in my 40's to drop some weight and get fit, about 5 months ago, and picked up some 1980's - 1990's hybrid and road bikes, all steel framed. I had 1 1982 steel road bike i started with, that wasnt a good fit for me and also i was so out of shape i had to start out on a hybrid. Anyway, i found it very easy to find some good old bikes at affordable prices on craigslist, and also i found a very good reasonable bike mechanic on yelp.com who has helped me with these used biked and even sold me 1 used bike. There is no reason anyone needs a $2500 new bike, unless it is for pro competitive racing needs (in which case $2500 wouldnt be enough and if you were good you would probably get free bikes from endorsements etc.) THere is no reason you cant use a used 1980's or 1990's road bike from craigslist to do group rides or recreational rides or commutes. If you have a family with children, and you are buying a $2500 new bike when you are on a tight budget, that just seems wrong. $250 for a good used bike is more reasonable. Devoting hundreds of hours of work time on a barter for a bike discount seems pretty stupid to me. Better off getting 1 used bike for $200 and not spending all those hours of labor for no pay. You could use all those hours to do your grad school work, or look for a job or work for pay, or spend the time with your family, or ride your $200 bike you could buy, or fix the $200 bike you could buy.

My bikes don't get the whole wife thing!

Imi says:

Not to be rude, but this is fake, there are some lies in his story, or Santaria likes bikes more than he likes to ride. Grow up Santaria, although I think you're older than I am. Stop having kids, grow up, and learn to enjoy riding, not looking at and coveting your bike.

Asking your family to make lifestyle changes so you can spend $2500 on a bike when money is tight doesn't sound like dedication to them. Spending your spare time working a side gig for a bike shop so you can buy an even fancier bike (you're not getting *any* cash, right? that job is 100% for your bike?) doesn't sound like dedication to them.

Ditch this PR gig, buy something much cheaper, put the rest of the money away for your family, and spend time with them. Maybe even stop hanging out here -- it sounds like you've got a bike lust problem -- maybe that's why you've more than once used the term "porn"?

Sorry, but this plan sounds like it could easily be another "fit of stupidity." I hope not. Good luck.

Actually, I think most of you are right. I need to find something reasonable and save that money for my vasectomy (right roots4x?) because what really was a good thread, where I felt that, even though people weren't saying what I wanted to hear about bikes and my choices I got some valid and honest feedback that I appreciate.

Peter, my degree is in media, communications and PR. I don't think "ditching" a 8 year education is the solution. Growing up a bit and buying something more practical does.

Roots4x - you're absolutely right. Of course you specifically intended to be rude, but then I don't mean to call you a liar, liar. My story isn't a lie - you were just looking for another Internet bully tactic to make yourself look "on the spot."

Why am I pointing you out so much? Because you've got a lot of nerve telling me "stop having kids." What does that have to do with my decisions about buying bikes? What does that have to do with having children I already have? Nothing. You made a banal statement that either indicates that my children are worthless and shouldn't exist or you can't read and rationalize statements beyond ascii text on your iPad. My advise to you is to not begin to have children, because ultimately that's what you implied to me - a father of four.

Nothing I hate more than prefacing something rude with "I'm not trying to imply you're a fat pig, but....[alternative to saying you're a fat pig that is suppose to be #politer]. Nothing. It shows ignorance and contempt.

I won't judge your life choices...everyone makes their own.

Of the bikes you listed, I'd choose the Roper for it's versatility.

Keep looking on Craigslist, even if you have to travel a bit. A Cross bike - like A Crosscheck, Jake, Fuji Cross, Tricross - would fit your needs really well, and if you're lucky you just might turn up a mildly used one. I did a few years ago -- found a 2007 Tricross Comp that had been ridded a total of about 5 miles from the shop to the guy's house then he parked it and it sat for 18 months until I bought it for half of what he paid for it.

I'm not necessarily going to jump on the used bike bandwagon; my bike was used, but I had time to learn and get it tweaked. That isn't always an option, and sometimes even in tight times spending money on getting a lasting ride is a worthy expenditure. But there's a lot of good new bikes out there at sub $1k (I was thinking around $700) that should do what you want and still be ready to rock on weekends. Maybe an REI bike? I have a Novara Randonee that I use to commute and do metric centuries on weekends. Retailed for $750, I think.

But, of course, the choice is yours.

Guys, if he's getting EP on those bikes, he can expect to pay between 1000 and 1500 out the door for the bikes he listed. Now, $850 on a used Cannondale CAD2 doesn't look so nice. You just have to make the decision, is your time worth the difference in price?

OP, I'm not here to judge you on your situation, choices, etc. Of the bikes you listed (I'd also add a Salsa Vaya and Surly C-Check to your list tho), I'd go with the Ogre for a one-bike-only solution. Surly's EP policy is cost-minus-10%, your final price would be between 850 and 900. Then, DON'T go wild with accessories and upgrades.

Good points here. If you're going new it might be best to scale it down a bit. If you're not racing the cost difference will have virtually no real impact on your riding. Looking at new bikes below $1000 still gives you a ton of options. And if you can wait until after Christmas there are often some really sweet deals on new bikes and used ones that were replaced at Christmas. I got a Novara Buzz at REI the week after Christmas one year (one of the few new bikes I've ever bought- BTW, I bought it at my wife's insistence) and the deal was competitive with what I would have spent on a used bike.

I like the ogre personally.

Though I do think your priorities are a bit out of whack.

Grad school, four kids, single income, does not = 2500$ bike, IMO.

My 400$ bike is all kinds of awesome.

But I guess, lance is as lance does?

So you are getting no monetary compensation besides buying a single bike at the employee discounted rate? What percentage discount does that give you? You may be undervaluing your time here if you are planning on doing PR for him for a year. I can see why you're overshooting your budget, though, if mentally you get the most "savings" by spending more.

You would probably be better off billing the shop owner hourly for your work and then just buying a used bike or a bikesdirect bike. You don't want to introduce even more strain on your marriage through more debt.

To answer your question, I like the Roper.

I would chime in a little bit with others that think you might need to re-examine your priorities.

You are a dedicated father of four who due to work and study - from your own posts - doesn't have time to eat dinner with your family (or presumably to help cook it). But you do have time to work at a bike shop to get a cheaper bike, and ride centuries on the weekend?

It sounds like you haven't got a very serious cash reserve built up in case of family calamity, but you have $2500 to spend on a bike?

I am not judging you, just playing back parts of your own posts to you.

My suggestion:

1. Cut back on your bike fever until you are eating dinner with your family every night.
2. Buy the cheapest bike that you can, and put the rest of the money in a emergency family fund and or starting college funds for your kids.
3. Focus your weekends on how much of a break your can give your wife from dealing with four kids. Ideally, relieve her of all family or chore responsibilities for at least a fill day - better if you can do it two full days. As men, we tend to focus on the hands on time with the kids (which is very important), but our spouses could also use a hand with the non-hands on time - household chores, cooking and cleaning, etc. Trust me, and man or woman who is the primary caregiver for four kids all week long is plumb wore out on the weekends.

I suspect that if you honestly consider why your wife doesn't get the bike thing, you will find yourself looking in the mirror. From your own posts, it seems like when it comes to spending time, your family is a distant second to your bike lust. That might be enough to turn your wife off of biking.

I am at the other end, getting back into biking as my youngest heads of to college. For about 20 years of your life, put their needs before your needs. I think that you will be far happier doing so.

I had an old friend that told me - right before I started into my child rearing years, "No one ever goes to the grave saying, I wish I had spend less time with my family."

I never forgotten that. I was a long ways from perfect in that regard, and I did get caught up in my own pursuits to the detriment of my kids from time to time. But I am grateful that I found my way back when I did.

The relationship you are building (or not building) with your kids will continue to be of prime importance in your life long after you can no longer recall what bike you did or didn't buy in 2011!

As a commuting bike, I don't think you could go wrong with that Raleigh, except maybe that you could probably find a used Raleigh of the touring variety in great condition for half the price on Craigslist. Kudos to you for convincing your wife to go car-free. Also, if I were you I'd invest $25 in a Crock Pot.

My opinion, which may be the only valid one here since I may be the only person in this thread so far to have actually been to Brownsville (a relative lives in Harlingen), is to seriously look at a cross bike like the Salsa Casseroll or Soma Crosscheck
https://salsacycles.com/bikes/casseroll/

There are a whole lot of riders out there with all kinds of bikes who all end up riding a cross bike for most of their riding. Good for all day comfort, good for rough roads, good for cutting across a dusty field if the Cartel sees you out riding around the back roads and thinks you're spying on them, good for the types of off road riding you'll find down there (except for the dunes and some of the dry washes).



If I get my bike stable down to just one bike it will probably be a cross style bike, or a touring bike, or something I already had, but probably a cyclo-cross bike.

And, please note, I was just blowing smoke above in my opening statement as I'm sure there are plenty of people on the site here who have been to Brownsville, been to Padre Island, and probably gone for some bike rides down there. In fact there are probably members of the local cycling club reading this. I stopped in at a bike shop in Harlingen a few years ago when we were down there, seemed like there was a reasonable cycling presence but not overly active in the summer months (we were there in July).

To the OP, get what works for you. And when all is said and done I'd wager that your EP savings contrasted to your hours spent writing for the shop will probably factor out to an hourly wage of maybe a buck an hour or less. But sometimes you got to work the options available given the time and place of the moment.

I think you'd tire of a Pugsley in short order. Neat bikes, but not what I'd pick for down there in southernmost Texas.

The Ogre would probably be the best "all around" bike, but I like that Raleigh better for road duties. She's a beaut.

Actually, I think the part of this thread that I didn't explain that has been lost, due to my not explaining enough, is the wife thing.

She doesn't get the bike thing: 105, Tiagra, Sora, Deore, LX, X0 -- this all means jack **** to her. She does-n't "get it" nor will she ever. As far as she understands, if I tune up her bike and say "this will do" then that's good enough for her. So there is no way to bounce bikes (for pleasure discussion, or any other true "conver-sation") without getting that vacant look.

Frankly, if I asked for $10k - if I saved it, she'd let me spend it.

I do agree with you about the kids thing. And between our two schedules, I'm with the children off/on for at least 50 percent of the time. I think there is a subtle elephant in the room when people assume. Let me explain a bit further.

I get up at 4:30 a.m. I can do one of two things with my "morning time." Right now, I’m in the process of training for a marathon in Bryan/College Station. While I’m out running, my wife and children are sleeping. I’ve asked, pleaded and begged her to get up at 4:30 a.m. Ultimately, she thinks I’m insane. So that time is “mine.” In the past, I’ve been able to ride 25, 35, 40, 50 miles with that time before the kids get up, par-ticularly in the summer.

My children have to be to school at 7:30 a.m. I walk my two sons (one is in fourth grade, the other kinder-garden) to their school which is 2 miles away twice a week. They get about 4-6 miles of walking in a week with just me. Its our time to laugh, kick dandilions and other things, and my time with my oldest son to discuss anything he wants.)

Three days a week, I have an 8 a.m. class to attend, so my wife and I drive the van because it works out time wise. There is too little time for me to walk from my children’s school to the university. This is the day where having a decent bike (not a hybrid) would pay off because its about a 10 mile trip that I can cover easily (I have before) in under 20 minutes.

On Saturday mornings, I do (currently) either 16, 18 or 20 mile runs. When I’m not training, that same 3-4 hour window of time gets used to cycle too. Once again, this is at 4:30 a.m. This is my time. I will not en-slave myself to anyone with that time. They choose to sleep. I’m not ignoring them, or telling them no. They have no desire to get up and run. Rather, the older two boys want to start biking with me on Saturday mornings. Until I have a bike again in January – that’s just not an option.

I work at a newspaper on the copy desk. That job keeps me at work from 1 p.m. until 10 p.m. five days a week. I go to school full time. During the week, when I have free time, I edit/tutor my wife and son. I also am the assistant coach of his robotics club. My goal with the PR thing is definitely to keep an EP. Because we’re not talking about 20 hours of work a week. At best, quality writers can do 3-4 stories a month in under 2-3 hours. I can write an undergraduate paper on just about anything in less than 2 hours that can reach 1500 words. Writing is my gift.

The EP is beyond one simple bike. In fact, the EP over the year amounts to several thousands of dollars. Why? Because my kids are on $40 Huffy-grade bikes. I would love to be able to buy my oldest son his first “quality” mountain bike. The Raleigh I am looking at with him retails for $299. He’ll get about 3-4 years out of it – and it will cost me closer to $125 with the EP. Not only will he get good use out of it, but so will my 6 year old as he grows into that bike, and his little brother. Each of them down to my daughter capable of getting a quality bike that will be able to be ridden by each of them as they grow beyond it. The ability to take those bikes, when I’m done with them and donate them to some of the needy children I see down here in the Colonias means those bikes, my work and the year of extra effort I put into them will be minimal to see one single bike get so much use. To assume I’m “lance” is almost degrading to Lance. I merely was avoiding a long, indepth conversation when my simple question was “which bike” with the caveat that I wanted to create more than a simple “this search function stupid” response.

Further EP points go toward my wife, who saw the Pugsley last year and wants one. I thought it was a great idea to buy her a bike she wants, even if she knows absolutely nothing about it, next year, when I graduate around Christmas. The $600 or so saved will be useful in Christmas presents for my children, without me telling my wife “bikings fun, just hop on this beater bike that I dug out of a dumpster/craigslisted (from questionable sources) for Christmas!” – She’s a German citizen, and for some reason – that’s her mindset when it comes to used anything.

Finally (if you’re still with me) the $2500 pricetag is the “top” of the pile. If I asked people for their ideas on $400 bikes – what would be the point? Everybody here (myself included) knows that there isn’t much wiggle room for bike manufacturers in this price point. It’s moot, but I went with a “middle of the road” price point. People balk at $2500 – yet think nothing about dropping $1800 for something that isn’t better than the $1100 option. At $2500 – you get into the more botique options, 105 minimum for road – X9/XT for mountain bikes. I know that people will say that their Sora rides just as amazing as a 105/Dura Ace ride – and to them I say “you’re full of ****, and you and I both know it.”

I love the Salsa options. My bigger problem with Salsa (and Surly to some degree lately) is that they keep lowering the quality of their offerings, year after year. The one thing I’ve noticed about Raleigh is that they’re the ones putting more value into their bikes, year after year.

I love the Ogre. I love the Roper. Obviously they have different uses.

I wonder if you could put a Salsa Woodchipper on the Ogre and get something more MB than the Fargo – with more versatility in the long run.

Mind you, I can get an Ogre for $1650 MSRP – and considering the EP – it’s a better buy than some of the $850 options out there. It’s a significantly better buy than a 10 year old aluminum road bike with question-able history on Craigslist that is selling for more than a brand new CAAD8.

I’m not an idiot, and I’m sorta shocked that it appeared to most that I am. Rather, I wanted to limit the amount of information enough to not have to post an epoch like this, just to get a discussion going about my options.

But in the end, bikeforums.net is like a family to me after all these years, so here’s the full information.

As long as you and your family are taken care of, (and only you and them can decide that).

Get what you want. I really like the Orge. It looks to do a lot of different things.

At the end of the day, only you can decide what to do, and what is right and wrong.
Not us on BF!

You say your wife wants a Pugsley? Neat. Get her a Pugsley and get the Moonlander for yourself, both neat bikes, both fairly well out there in both practicality and fun factor.

I'll still stick with the cyclocross option suggestion.

The shop I helped at limited EP'd bikes to maybe one or two a year depending upon a few variables. If your deal is not limited then color me envyous.

I, too, tend to type too much.

(edit: this reminds me, I need to drop off a lunchtime pizza this week at the bike shop for favors rendered last week)

Roper

Like what others have said, the most logical choice is to buy an older hard-tail MTB from a reputable company like trek or specialized. They are built well (overbuilt) and will serve any utilitarian needs. Not a huge market-demand so you will typically see one for $50. Won't take much to get even an abused one up for commuting.

I can't tell you which one to pick out of those 4, but I would absolutely not pick the C'dale. I don't even know why you are considering that one after hearing about your situation.

Hey, you can do whatever you want with your life and your money. It's none of my business. Don't let the bastards get you down. Live it, love it, laugh at it.

However You did ask for opinions on those 4 or 5 bikes, I'm another vote for the Puglsey with a second 29er wheelset for slightly more speedy endeavours. How much more fun can you have than that? The answer is none. None more fun.

Precisely. You are a wise man, of few words, but when you use those words, they sum of exactly the point. Thank you.

I like the Pug as well, but my concern is an odd one.

A bike with those wheels will draw a significant amount of attention. 29ers aren't "uncommon" but Pugs are, well, if I bought my wife and I one while we were down here, we'd be the only two probably in a 500 mile radius riding them. Cars slip across the border with ease - I'm going to assume those amazing 4x4 bikes would too.

But yeah, the Special Ops Pug is sweet. The Ogre really has my attention, if somehow I could build one with a Fox 29R 100M fork on the front it would be 100 percent versatile. The stock fork rocks - but my Karate Monkey was a bit of a pig riding the twisty single-track down here on the weekends. It's not a deal breaker, but it does make me wonder the viability of adding that fork to the equation on a Ogre.

The Roper is "all" the bike I've ever wanted to build up - but still limited - unfortunately. The roads here are so bad, that at night it would be taking a risk of taco'ing a rim constantly. I seriously need to go take a picture of Sam Pearl for you guys. I've seen 2 cars in 2 months that ripped the rear axle off (I believe one was a Ford Focus) just on the potholes.