Outdoors

More times than not most people that are looking to buy a road bike are only looking at the price of the bike and not the quality. Price is important but it is probably more important that you get quality for the price you pay.

Your search for a new road bicycle must begin with certain answers addressed first.

Used-vs-New
There are many places to find used bicycles today. You can find plenty of them for sale on Craigslist in most price ranges. If you finances are tight then this may be your only option. The obvious problem with purchasing a used road bike is that you don’t really know how many miles it was ridden and what problems the previous owner had with the bike. Even if the bike appears to be clean and in good shape there may still be small stress fractures that may cause a catastrophic failure.

You must visually inspect all the parts of the bike to see if you can find obvious signs of wear. All parts are going to wear out eventually, but the degree of wear is quicker in the lesser quality components. You must inspect the frame carefully because if there is a stress fracture in one of the welds then you might as well throw the bike away.
You can always swap out the components yourself if you have the capacity to do so. You can go to a bike shop and have them do it for you but the cost will be exponentially higher. These are just some of the concerns when you buy a used bike. Not to mention the injuries you could get if the bike had a structural failure while you were out riding your new used bike.

Mid-Range Price VS Low-Range Price
There are three price ranges for road bikes, but for the sake of this article we will only discuss the mid and lower range road bikes. The price range for these road bikes will be 400 to 1200 dollars for the mid-range bikes and 200 to 400 dollars for the lower-range road bikes. Now you may say that 1200 dollars is a lot of money for a mid range priced road bike but when you take into consideration that you could pay upwards of 10,000 dollars for a higher priced road bike it doesn’t seem so high.

The difference among these types of road bikes is the quality of their components including the tires, seat, derailleur, crank and frame. Basically the bikes will be as different as up and down. Although you will be probably be getting a Shimano derailleur on both bikes you will be not be getting the Shimano XTR Shadow on the low priced road bike. This is true for most of the bike’s components. If it doesn’t matter to you then by all means get the inexpensive bike as opposed to the more expensive road bike. An example would be, if you couldn’t afford the higher priced Schwinn Laguna Pro you could instead purchase the less expensive Lamborghini Rapido. Both are quality road bikes and for a beginner the Rapido may be good enough. If you can afford something in between, the Tommaso Monza might just be the road bike for you.

Cost Of Repair
Once you factor in what the cost would be to replace the less expensive components you will find that you should just have bought the better bike to begin with. To replace the derailleur will cost you anywhere from 100 to 200 dollars and more depending on the bike shop and the derailleur you choose to replace it with. This will be basically the same for most components. The total cost of replacement will certainly out price the original cost of the road bike.

Basically speaking the cheaper you buy it for the cheaper it will be.