Anyone here ride Road bikes, I am interested in buying one and getting back into riding, I am not interested in buying a hybrid or Mountain Bike,
just wondering what brands should I look at, I know only a few "american" ( Trek, Giant, specialized, cannondale ?) I often see nice European used bikes, and I am interested in what any cyclist thinks!

Thanks,

katos

ChatDEau,


Thanks alot, It has been a number of years (15) since I owned
a bike, and now that I have the oppurtunity, I want to get something
nice that will last a while, their are so many brands, and some
that I have never heard of. Thanks I will check Devinci's site

Katos

Great, I can tell you Devinci has real good & quality products. I crashed couple of times with mine and there's not even a scratch on it. The painting is kinda cooked onto the frame, so it's really resistant.

Fred

These Bikes look Great!! In my searching I have seen many great bikes, unfortunately most are out of My price Range. I will contact the Watertown Dealer and see What his prices are like.

Thanks

Ayo

Well, if it can give you an idea, I've paid mine (Phantom 2002, not a road bike tho) $1500, this is canadian dollars.

Did you call them yet? I really suggest you go to a dealer (if any near your place) as the bikes look even better when you can touch them!

Later

Fred

I haven't called them yet, today is my first day off during
business hours.( i work 8 to 5 and sometimes later.)
the road bikes look Awesome no question about it.
I am just a little far from the closest dealers, patterson
is about 3 hours from BingoTown, and Watertown is 3.5 hours to
the north.

As finances are not as free at this time ( as I would like )
I will probably not make a purchase untill later on in the summer
(july or august.) All my spending money comes from my parttime
work, which is a little slow right now. I don't know, maybe I should
just pick up a part time job just to get some quick spending money

oh well, I'll let you know when I get a chance to get to patterson.

Thanks,

Ayo

Quote:

I would ask the man in the yellow jersey

{The day's big winner was Lance Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team, which provided a *CLINIC* on how to ride a team time trial} <----taken from the following link
http://www.tourdefrancenews.com/tourdefrance/experts/columns/0,3489,s1-9089,00.html

I always loved Kieldemoes from Denmark. I got myself a Kildemoes Kolibri from 1994 and I´ve ridden on it since that time a lot (equivalent to 2 or 3 times the world, (best tour one day trip 330 km).
The last years they were more in the comfort and city bike business but as far as I checked their website they are back with good bikes now. An avarage price for a Kildemoes bike is around 800 EUR.
Problem: I do not know if there is some dealer in the U.S. And their website is Danish only (well on what planet do they live? Who exept danish people understands danish?).
Luckily in Germany there are several dealers who sell Kildemoes.

I also liked the Peugeot bikes as well as Bianchi, or Univega (don´t know if they are European or American).

My girlfriend just bought a bike from a local dealer here: He sells Italian frames (labeled as Anzani) and creates custom configurations. My girlfrend got a good bike for 590.- EUR (we will cruise with our bikes south France in some weeks...).

And my last (expensive) suggestion is Japanese: Koga Miyata

But of course I confirm that there are several good American brands.

PS: A real good advice if you a looking for an every day bike take care to get "Schwalbe Marathon (Plus)" tyres (check out www.schwalbe.com). Your bike will never ever run out of air again. Of course there are other tyres with Kevlar inlay, but those Schwalbe tyres are just perfect (it´s no problem to use them for 50.000 km)

Well since I ride for Specialized I am partial to them. They are great bikes and come loaded if yo get an S-Works model. A real nice bike at a real nice pricce though is the LEmonds named after the one and only. I am mostly sure Trek makes the frames. They are priced very well too. Take a look at them.

@ acill


You ride for Specialized!! at what level? and how often do you race and train?

[ Edited by katos1 on 2004/7/9 8:45 ]

I am on an amature level but I think I am quite good. I am a cross country mountain bike rider. Training for me is 4 times a week and I average 30 miles a ride. So I do just over 100 a week. I can upload some of my pictures of me racing and some of my new bike they sent me if anyone is interested.

Sure upload away... or even PM me if you don't want to add to the gallery.

I did my longest ride ever last friday. 70km, I normally only ride 25 to 40 km, but this was a flat ride, so it wasn't to bad. The bad part was trying to keep pace with my friend. Unfortunately I have a ways to go before I am in the condition to keep up with him.

[ Edited by katos1 on 2004/7/8 11:47 ]

70km what is that in miles? Well done though! Keep it up. The secret to it is getting out at least four times a day and ride. You have to do things tha are a challege for you. Flat ground wont do anything unless you do like you did and work the entire time at keeping up the pace.

Oh yea in the Morphzone users picture section I have one of me during a recent race.

[ Edited by Acill on 2004/7/8 13:51 ]

Quote:

That's the way forward. I mostly ride alone, it's more indeoendent, you can chose speed, distance, way just as you like.
My best motivation for long distances were always related to girls. I did my long trips mostly somehow for the girls I loved.
That motivated me for 330 km in one day or a trip from Münster, Germany to Mancheter, UK in two days (as well as several other trips like that).

Mabe it's a motivation to reach from your place to the seaside in one day, I just checked a map, looks quite doable.
Start early in the morning and enjoy a beer on the beach in the evening - I guarantee that beer will be one of your most refreshing ones ever.

@Zylesea

Wow!! thats quite a distance!! currently my biggest motivation
is to lose weight. I started the year at 196 lbs and am down to 180.
which for my height 5'10" isn't too bad, but I still don't feel sharp
or in shape yet... maybe I never will...Now if I could just lose about
10 more pounds I feel I would get that spark back in my step.


@acill

70 km is about 43 miles

katos1

[ Edited by katos1 on 2004/7/9 8:37 ]

I feel 16 lbs from the beginnig of the year is quite a successs. Thing is if you just cut your food to lose weight it might be faster but is not sustainable and makes you feel bad. If you lose weight by burnig calories it does take some time, but it is sustainable and just the other way around than by cutting food.
There you loose fastly the first pounds and then it becomes harder to lose further weight. If you do this by sport, then the first kilos are hard, but with every pound you lost the next melts faster.
There was recently a nice report on TV here some weeks ago where they showed some 10 avarage ppl not active in sports before who started training with the aim to go over the Atlantic to NY and do the marathon in one year. All of them did it and succeeded in New York. The first half year progress was not too obvious, but at all they came in shape (well, the aim was not to run a best time, but to do it for yourself).
The hardest is to keep motivation I guess. But to give you some motivation, I'll give you a both thumps up .

Just a small addendum to the initial question (good european bikes..) and to bridge the gap to the Pegasos computer:
There is a German cycle brand called Pegasus. But their quality is more or less poor. My first own bike was a red Pegasus, then later when I was around 11 years or so I got again a Pegasus bike, a white 26" boys "racing bike" (that was not too bad, 10 way chain gear - damn, I "reigned" the neigbourhood with my bike back then ...).