I know this is a long shot but does anybody know anything about serious cycling?

I know this is a long shot but I'm gonna be looking to upgrade to a pretty decent road bike once the snow melts but I don't really have two clues as to what is good or not as I've just been using a rickety 12 year old mountain bike to do my distance cycling.

Anybody have any recommendations per chance? Any closet cyclists lurking around here?

i used to do a bit of mountain biking, a few of my friends were really into road cycling but i dont know much about it myself.

Same. I used to do a lot of downhill mountain biking, but no road riding. Sorry.

Damn, I should get my bike tuned up and start again!

I'm not a big biker personally, but a family friend of ours is. If you can give me a ballpark budget and some general ideas of what you want, I can talk to him.

Pariah wrote:I'm not a big biker personally, but a family friend of ours is. If you can give me a ballpark budget and some general ideas of what you want, I can talk to him.

budget would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000$-1500$. 1800ish $ max but I'd probably like to keep it under that since I'll no doubt need to get some accessories as well.

As for what I'm looking for I'll be buying from a local shop so brands would be limited to what they carry. This is what they carry for sport/performance road bikes.

Trek, Giant, Cervelo, BMC, Opus, Guru and Kona.

I was looking at what they had online and the Trek stuff seems pretty appealing and gets pretty decent reviews. I'm just not sure what I'd need as far as drivetrain and gear ratios and things like that. I've seen 10, 20 and 30 speed drivetrains.

The mountain bike I have now is a 21 speed and I max that out going down hills and usually keep it in 19th gear the rest of the time. It's very rare I shift lower than that.

II'll ask him about that then. I know he ordered his bike from an online dealer, and that thing was a lot cheaper. I saw it in the shop for 2200, he got it for 1200. Might wanna consider that as an option, could get a good deal.

Pariah wrote:II'll ask him about that then. I know he ordered his bike from an online dealer, and that thing was a lot cheaper. I saw it in the shop for 2200, he got it for 1200. Might wanna consider that as an option, could get a good deal.

Might be hard to find an online dealer that's in Canada. Otherwise I'll have to deal with shipping and border fees. Plus I'm a noob so I don't even know what size bike I need and how to adjust the fit properly. Probably best I have a shop do that.

Been reading online and fit is apparently very important in a road bike.

Metalzoic wrote:Same. I used to do a lot of downhill mountain biking, but no road riding. Sorry.

Damn, I should get my bike tuned up and start again!

yeah. i used to take too many risks when i was mountain biking and really enjoyed it.

then i took a northshore too fast and hit a tree root at the exit. wiped out pretty spectacularly on said root. the next thing i knew was face-pain and the trees looking down at me

i went straight over the handlebars, smashing my face into the ground, then carried on and flipped onto my back. my handlebars dug themselves into the dirt and stopped my bike from following me, but got bent pretty badly and i had to get a new pair.

that kinda put me off doing any more stunts, i just use it to ride to friends houses on now

The Adli Corporation wrote:

Metalzoic wrote:Same. I used to do a lot of downhill mountain biking, but no road riding. Sorry.

Damn, I should get my bike tuned up and start again!

yeah. i used to take too many risks when i was mountain biking and really enjoyed it.

then i took a northshore too fast and hit a tree root at the exit. wiped out pretty spectacularly on said root. the next thing i knew was face-pain and the trees looking down at me

i went straight over the handlebars, smashing my face into the ground, then carried on and flipped onto my back. my handlebars dug themselves into the dirt and stopped my bike from following me, but got bent pretty badly and i had to get a new pair.

that kinda put me off doing any more stunts, i just use it to ride to friends houses on now

Haha nice. Yeah I've always been a mountain bike guy. I used to do some trail riding and stuff but I never tried anything too crazy.

I remember one time I went down a super steep hill without touching my brakes then the flat part at the bottom of the hill was full of ruts and pot holes. I was bombing pretty good and hit the pot holes at full speed. I was bouncing around left and right like crazy.

Somehow I managed to not wipe out though. Don't ask me how but I managed to stay with it. It was a pretty hairy ride though.

http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling
You can try here, community seems prertty big and knows what they're talking about

I lost most of my teeth as a child from bike accidents

http://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Roadmaster-Granite-Peak-Men-s-Mountain-Bike/21191072

Dude you dont buy a bike from Wally World

HydrasBreath wrote:

The Adli Corporation wrote:

Metalzoic wrote:Same. I used to do a lot of downhill mountain biking, but no road riding. Sorry.

Damn, I should get my bike tuned up and start again!

yeah. i used to take too many risks when i was mountain biking and really enjoyed it.

then i took a northshore too fast and hit a tree root at the exit. wiped out pretty spectacularly on said root. the next thing i knew was face-pain and the trees looking down at me

i went straight over the handlebars, smashing my face into the ground, then carried on and flipped onto my back. my handlebars dug themselves into the dirt and stopped my bike from following me, but got bent pretty badly and i had to get a new pair.

that kinda put me off doing any more stunts, i just use it to ride to friends houses on now

Haha nice. Yeah I've always been a mountain bike guy. I used to do some trail riding and stuff but I never tried anything too crazy.

I remember one time I went down a super steep hill without touching my brakes then the flat part at the bottom of the hill was full of ruts and pot holes. I was bombing pretty good and hit the pot holes at full speed. I was bouncing around left and right like crazy.

Somehow I managed to not wipe out though. Don't ask me how but I managed to stay with it. It was a pretty hairy ride though.

Yeah. I miss it. The friend I rode with moved away and I really didn't know anybody else in the scene so I just basically quit going when he left.

We used to do some pretty fast downhill, I had many a gnarly wreck, but always managed to walk away even if the bike needed to be repaired.

Nothing like hopping over a downed tree and then realize mid-air that you're heading square into something that looks extremely painful to hit and you can't get released from the bike in time.

JrTapia1991 wrote:http://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Roadmaster-Granite-Peak-Men-s-Mountain-Bike/21191072

Why didn't I think of that! 90 bucks? that's totally legit!