Next week DW and I will be traveling to a bike shop that reportedly has hundreds of used bikes for sale, looking for a bike for her.

If I could be armed with a list of good brands and brands to avoid, it would help me evaluate the bikes. Same for components.

Thanks.

Search function?

Ok you go to get narrower. What's the budget and what's the intended use? Then we could try to give some ideas on what you can reasonably expect and what you should look for.

Other than that if it says "Denali" or "Free Spirit" on the frame run.

Don't buy anything branded by a car manufacturer.

A modern, American car manufacturer.

Yeah, if you find a Studebaker or an Edsel, buy it.

Get a list of custom bike builders like Eisenstraut (sp) and Gordon. If you see one of these give it another look. Someone on the C & V forum might buy it from you. I'll bet the shop staff will have brought them all by now. Look up the bike names in a major National bike magazine and consider those. They rarely mention the really schlock bikes.

+1
My Grandmother had a Studebaker Lark - it was a great car!

Looking for a road bike for DW. Willing to spend up to about $500 on a used bike, more if we need to buy a new one. It will be for rides together, probably not much more than 20 miles at a time. She's in good shape, but hasn't ridden for a while. I'd like to give her an advantage over me.

Yeah, I tried that, but didn't have much luck ("bikes to avoid", "worst brands", "best bikes", etc.). Maybe I just haven't thought of a good search term.

Where is this great used bike shop???

Ok, for $500, I'd be looking for a lightly used, entry level bike from one of the major manufacturers, such as Trek, Canondale, Giant, Felt, Fuji.

Fit is really more important than brand. So if you're going used, make sure you understand how to fit a bike.

Given that it's for a female, you may want to consider a WSD bike (women specific design) Typically these bikes have shorter top tubes, which work better for some women.

Pinto bikes are supposed to be quite good too. Almost explosive.

Have yet to see whether it's great or not. After finding zero appropriate used bikes after looking for a month or two on Craigslist and none at bike stores around here, I called bike store in Crescent City, CA (about an hour away), and the owner said "We have 400 used bicycles and 200 new bicycles, come take a look!"

I have a feeling that what I'm going to find is a warehouse with a sea of rust, but it should be interesting.

If nothing turns up in the next two weeks, we'll probably get a Trek 330 WSD.

In the $500 price range you should be able to find something on CraigsList if you're lucky. I haven't looked at new prices lately, but getting into an Entry-Level Sora bike brand-new shouldn't be *much* higher than your budget (what's an OCR3 going for these days? The shop may have a small discount, and for a bit more than your current budget you'll have something brand new, and will know that it fits etc.)

i would say stay away from Fuji...they need to work on customer relations a bit and they don't really stand behind the product they sell.

Basically, you just want to stay away from department store brands. The differences in the remaining brands are pretty subtle.

Fuji is a fine brand and a great bang for the buck. Them standing behind the OPs purchase is probably irrelevant anyway as he is buying used.

OP...dont shy away from Fuji. Crash716 likely had a bad experience with Fuji but that doesnt make it a less than desireable brand.

perhaps i am bitter...but i am not the only one to have problems with them or the way they treat warranty claims.

On a used bike, there isn't any warranty, so that doesn't really seem to be an issue.

What does the D in DW stand for?

DW = Dear Wife.