I'm not in the market right now, but I'm sure many would be interested in what brands have a great value. I'm just interested in what ones you guys think are a good value.

In my opinion; Jamis, Fuji, and Giant are up there.

It totally depends what you want out of a bike. Is it for racing of the occasional weekend ride? Do you care about weight more than cost, etc? Honestly the ones you mentioned are all made in huge factories in Taiwan, and their lower end road bikes are largely of similar quality. Your best bet would be to look for last year's model from an LBS that's marked down. You can find some great deals that way.

As an owner of a Jamis Xenith, I feel compelled to agree that they have some good values out there.


Seeing as a large percentage of bikes are made in huge factories in Taiwan, this shouldn't be a surprise.
A) not the point of the thread
B) false logic - if a bike is a better value to begin with, and you find a previous year model that's marked down, it's an even greaterer deal.

Almost all the major brands (not including department store brands or custom builders) have marketing strategies that target high (or higher) volume sales with "lower end" or "value" models. This is their bread and butter of the business, and creates brand loyalty/affinity when it's time to upgrade.

"Value" does not imply low(er) end.

Most pros ride on Taiwan bikes, I guess they don't know **** about bikes.

That's why I said "or". And lower end is simply that, eg. the Allez - which I have as my winter bike - is on the bottom of Specialized's road bike product line. Great bike (and value), but it's the low end model.

No it doesn't.
Two high end race bikes A & B, similar quality and components, A is cheaper, so A is a better value.
Replace "high end race bikes" with "beach cruisers", still the same answer.

Okay - crappy sentence structure, then. When you put an "or" directly between two terms like that, you're implying that they're synonymous.

holy crap , you guys lost me. I have a jammis and a giant. I love em both. I thought they where priced right.

Although I have an Allez and love it myself, there is more "value" out there than what Specialized prices their bikes for. Bikes Direct bikes are a better value for anyone wanting quality components if they can assemble it themselves. GT, Novara, KHS, and other lesser-known brands usually spec bikes similarly to big brands that cost more.

Absolutely. I chose it primarily for the frame. As/when I upgrade my Wilier, the groupset/wheels will trickle down to the Allez. I did consider a GT - they're discrete and low key but spec'd out with "nice-r" components for its price.

I often hear that GT makes the other folks' frames, so they're a better value because they cut out one of the middlemen. Don't know if there's any truth to that or not.

FAIL!

ALL pro ride what they are paid to ride. That is what makes them pros!

BTW: They could drop us on a wally world bike

When I was shopping for my current bike, I compared specs and test-rode Trek, Fuji, Jamis, Specialized, and Felt. I bought the Felt because it offered more bang for the buck (105 vs. Tiagra at the same or lower price point) and I liked its ride the best.

When I bought my Giant I was told that Giant made the vast majority of all frames (except top tier) for other companies.

I considered a GT as well, but I couldn't accept the fugly graphics just to save $100.

last year I bought my 1st bike and ended up with the Scott CR1 Team. I thought it was an excellent value.

Motobecane.

The flip-side of this question is: for which brands are you paying the most premium for their "name"?

No offense to any of the companies mentioned, but it has seemed to me that both Trek and Specialized command a bit of a price premium due to their well-known brands, compared to Cannondale, Felt, Scott, Jamis, Giant, etc. (Perhaps Cannondale is sort of between Trek/Specialized and the others.) Note that I'm not ordering the brands in terms of quality - just in terms of price premium paid for the name. As one specfic example, when I bought my Scott CR1 Team for right around $2000, I was looking at very comparable Trek and Specialized models being more like $2400. In the Specialized case it was the same component group and the same wheels, and so the comparison was pretty direct.

I'm only including companies in the above list that have broad product lines in the first place, including lower-end, more mass-market products. Certainly there is a significant "name premium" associated with a lot of other brands, such as Cervelo, Pinarello, Colnago, etc., which may or may not be completely justified, depending on your point of view....

Fail. Doesn't change the fact that they are still mostly made in Taiwan.

It's not a judgement as to their value or quality. Taiwan makes great bikes. There's just not much to differentiate an entry level Tiagra equipped road bike. I wouldn't sweat the brand because they aren't all that different at that price point.

I would concentrate more on "good value bikes" instead of good value brands. Almost every brand has bikes with more bang for the buck. I am sure that Jamis, Fuji and Giant have very expensive high end models with relatively low "value."

For that matter, many high end companies have lower end model bikes with pretty good value. For example, you can buy a Cervelo RS with Rival for $2600 list and that exact same frame has been ridden and won many pro tour races.

Any intro-level road bike with drop bars nowadays is an incredibly good value. You get 98% of the performance of the 5k bikes, and now, they even look sharp enough to hold their own against the Cervelos / etc. out there.

I'm pretty sure that Shimano purposely avoids reselling the Sora and 2200/2300 intro-level component specs widely because it would kill their margin, since they work so well. Far better to propagate the myth that you 'need' 105+ components.

Also note that if Sora/2200-2300 was so bad, they wouldn't be shipping it on all their intro road bikes, which are specifically aimed to get people more serious about spending more coin on their next bike.

bingo.