I need a bike....

I need a bike. Duh! But seriously I will need to get one in order to do this ride. The search began in earnest a few weeks ago.

When I look into getting something big (a car, new TV, laptop, etc) I spend a considerable amount of time trying to get educated. It was no different with the bike purchase. Below are a few of the sites I found helpful in getting to understand what road bikes cost and which ones are better then the others:

1) Road Bike Reviews This site was a reference I kept coming back to. Along with individual bike reviews, there are reviews of individual components and parts. There are also a lot of advertising links to great deals. Finally there is a good discussion forum on lots of bike related topics.
2) Bike Forums.NET A site totally dedicated to people talking about everything bicycling. From folding bikes to road racing, and everything in between.
3) Performance Bicycle The website for my LBS (local bike shop). LBS is a term you read about a lot. Quickly followed by the mantra “support your LBS”.
4) Shimano Components Almost every bike I looked at came with Shimano components. As a newbie to biking it takes a bit of effort to figure out what parts are in what classification. There site helped out a lot. (they just remodeled the site and I think it less usable now.)
5) Ebay Cycling Section It was good to see what was available on Ebay while comparison shopping. (I ended up buying my bike from a dealer on Ebay)

It ended up taking me about 5 or 6 weeks to narrow down on the bike I wanted and order it. This is a lot longer then I take on most purchases (hence my nickname as ‘the ultimate consumer’). After all the research and investigating my short list came down to these three bikes:

1) Tirreno Razza 3.0 (Shimano 105’s) from Performance bike for $849
2) Tommaso AS1 2005 (Shimano 105’s) from Randall Scott Cycle Company for $799
3) Motobecane Fantom Cross (Shimano 105/Tiagra Mix) from Ebay for $647.

Despite the heavy lobbying efforts from a friend who wanted me to get the Tirreno as he did, I ended up getting the Motobecane. The big problem with the Tirreno was that it was green. In just had this drab-dull look at I couldn’t get past. The big advantage of the bike was that if you purchase a bike from Performance they give you life time tune-ups. I’m sure at some point the cost of annual tune-ups will eat into the wallet, but for now that benefit was not enough to overcome the green color of the bike.

The Motobecane is a Cyclocross bike. These are road bikes that are built just a little bit different. They have wider forks to support wider tires, and include flat-bar mounted brake handles in addition to the traditional brake handles found on road bikes. Cyclocross bikes can be ridden off-road with their wider tires but perform just like a road bike when on the road (with the same tires.) The versatility of the bike is what won me over. Plus I felt I got a very good deal. The MSRP of the bike is $1395, but nobody pays MSRP. Two on-line retailers had been selling these for $795 (bikes direct) and $747 (ebay). I had been watching the retailer on ebay list this bike over and over at the $747 price for several weeks (plus $40 shipping). One day they posted a listing for this bike at $647. I double and tripled check that this was the same bike as their other listings and it was. It was just listed for $100 less then normal. While this listing was active there were no listings posting for this same bike at $747. I can only guess someone miskeyed in the price. For $647 (plus shipping) I couldn’t pass it up.

It arrived last Friday and I began building it. I was very impressed with the packing and the level of detail of the parts. As the bike started to come together I was getting excited and couldn’t wait to ride it. But then I got to the assembly of the brakes and the shifting derailuers. After spending a good hour or so trying to figure them out (the assembly manual was a generic version and not specific to my brakes or gears) I decided to give up. I ended up taking the bike to Performance to have them professionally finish off the assembly. The estimated about $40 to get it done, which I’m happy to pay to know that everything is put together correctly. I hope to be able to do my own maintenance work on the bike going forward but getting together right the first time will be worth the $40.