For type of bike you have to ask yourself a very critical question. Do you want to horse around in the mud, go for distance, speed, triathalon, or some combination? Once you know that it is easy to identify what type of bike is appropriate. (Of course nowhere is it written "thou shalt only have one type of ride". Actually I have three types, and I know guys at the club who have many types of bikes in their basement.)
How seriously do you want to take this because that answers the question, what sort of budget are you looking at?
What area of the city do you live in? - you want to join a club close to home.
Start with that, once you have those questions answered I can suggest a club close to home and probably a decent bike shop, or ten.
Well the person replied a few days later,
my budget is about 2500-3000 but hopefully the lower end of that. ive gone to two bike shops, gears in mississauga and cyclemotive on bathurst at queen near my place.Now if you read the email very closely you can find out the he did answer two questions. Our guy lives near Queen and Bathurst, so no problem, send him to Dukes and he joins the Lapdogs. We also know that we are steering him towards a pretty decent bike... but what kind? Well he never actually answered the most important question, a question so important I even identified it as the very critical question. The question that really enables us to find out the answer to his question, should he go Road or Mountain, or, to his credit, something else entirely. He never told me what he wanted to do with his bike.
i havent really had a bike in ages. i am essentially looking for a bike that i can use on weekends for training/fitness and maybe after work or early mornings depending on how zealous i am. i was thinking road bike "LAST WEEK" until i came across a cyclocross bike at cyclemotive made by argon 18. the reason being i feel like it it may be more "practical" ie can take more of a beating and allow for a longer season. do you know much about them. i would only consider them if they would be able to handle the same rigors that a road bike can handle. also, i dont want to be limited on the type of workouts/distances/comfort of the bike.
In re-reading what he wrote I realise now that he did try, sort of, in a really poorly articulated sort of way to say kind of what he wanted. Except that he came up so short that the effort was not even worth hitting send on his email client.
In order to figure out what a person wants it is critical to determine what they see themselves doing. I did not need to ask if I should get a road or mountain because I've always been a crazy distance nut. But suppose hypothetically I were to buy a new bike today, better yet, consider the example of where I was a year ago. I was an inline skater, I loved going as far as possible, Mississauga! Oakville! Burlington! I used to bike on an old Italian steel frame road bike and loved it. So for me the answer seems pretty obvious, I was, and very much am an endurance freak. Okay no sweat, get a road bike. Specialized Allez would be logical, and actually the bikes I looked at first, but then I saw a Roubaix with a better groupo (105 vs. Tiagra or Sora on the Allez) and well the rest is history. Now suppose I loved turning up mud and going off road into the pastures, well obviously I would never have taken up inline, but also I would be getting a Cross or Mountain.
But based on what our guy said my response was in retrospect dead on the mark: from what I read, my honest impression is, you want a shinny bike that looks pretty in the store.
Not the best way to gain a friend, but I have always subscribed to the notion, better an honest enemy than a dishonest friend. So I suppose the moral here is, don't elect me to any political office, I will cause too much trouble as I would be a horrible politician. But then that is hardly news to anyone who knows me, I hope.
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