Well as the black friday/ cyber monday impulse purchases continue to strike me I have spent the better part of 12 hours trying to decide the right decision for a bike purchase for my wife. I went the impulsive route and now am looking for a little feedback.
Background:
Our family likes to go on bike rides and have utilized mostly mountain bikes. I have my stable of bikes (MTN, Road, Tri, commuter) and the wife has a MTN and commuter. When she first started biking with me (15 yrs ago) she had a cheap dept store MTN bike and I had a Specialized MTN bike. As a good boyfriend I would let her ride the good MTN bike and I would suffer on her bike. She liked my 'high end' bike and wound up getting her own. It was almost my exact bike, including size, just a different color. She has ridden it quite a bit, but seeing as I am 5'9 and the wife is 5'4, as we have started to do some longer trail rides it has become evident that the bike is too large for her. Combined with the fact that we do not do much MTN biking and we are looking to do longer rides it is time to look at a new bike for her.
Current:
We do a lot of 'trail' riding in Europe. This ranges from nicely groomed packed trails to cobblestone to paved dedicated bike paths. We have also talked about her being able to do some of the sportives that are very popular here. We have looked at many of the LBS around us and she hasn't found anything that she loves. She is very frugal and will not justify in her own mind buying another bike, but if I just buy her one she is alright with it. She hasn't ridden a road bike and we not sure she will love it like I do. Another reason she does not want to spend a lot of money. After her experience moving from a dept store bike to a proper bike she understands that a good bike, properly setup, will make it much more enjoyable to ride and can be the difference between enjoying riding or not. I would like her to be able to use this for family rides, sportives, credit card touring, trainer sessions.
Options:
Since we do a lot of 'trail' riding I had thought of getting her a CX bike and she could put slicks on it for sportives. However, if she can run 28mm tires on a road bike it should be plenty of width for anything that we normally ride. Because of aesthetics she prefers the Shimano 105, which I have no reservations about because that is what I have on my road bike and know that it is a good shifting setup. The 2 bikes that I am juggling between right now is:
Bike 1: $600 (reg $1400) Black Friday sale
Fitwell DeGroot 2
Unknown frame quality/ weight
Shimano 105 (10s) 50/34 &11-32
Road setup with 28mm tires (rim brakes)
Looks to have mounts for rear rack
Should be able to mount fenders
Bike 2: $1300 (approx. cost)
Canyon Inflite 8.0
Great bike
Shimano 105 (11s)- 46/36 & 11-32
CX setup with knobby tires (disc brakes)
Bike 3: ?
Wait until summer and go to LBS and pick out whatever is available
The option of bike 1 is the only thing that is pushing me to the impulse buy. I know that the standard answer is to go to the LBS and let her pick one that fits the best. Either of these bikes will be a mail order. We could go test ride some that have the closest geometry and then order, but this would put us outside of the black friday deal on bike 1. Also, compounding the issue is that the wife's ability to truly test ride a bike at this time is hindered by the fact that she is 8 months pregnant. As I spend a decent amount of time on the trainer with my bike, we had talked about her being able to utilize her bike on the trainer after she recovers from the pregnancy as a way to get a workout in while the baby is sleeping.
SO, let me know your thoughts. Bike 1, 2, or 3? And if 3, what do you recommend.
Background:
Our family likes to go on bike rides and have utilized mostly mountain bikes. I have my stable of bikes (MTN, Road, Tri, commuter) and the wife has a MTN and commuter. When she first started biking with me (15 yrs ago) she had a cheap dept store MTN bike and I had a Specialized MTN bike. As a good boyfriend I would let her ride the good MTN bike and I would suffer on her bike. She liked my 'high end' bike and wound up getting her own. It was almost my exact bike, including size, just a different color. She has ridden it quite a bit, but seeing as I am 5'9 and the wife is 5'4, as we have started to do some longer trail rides it has become evident that the bike is too large for her. Combined with the fact that we do not do much MTN biking and we are looking to do longer rides it is time to look at a new bike for her.
Current:
We do a lot of 'trail' riding in Europe. This ranges from nicely groomed packed trails to cobblestone to paved dedicated bike paths. We have also talked about her being able to do some of the sportives that are very popular here. We have looked at many of the LBS around us and she hasn't found anything that she loves. She is very frugal and will not justify in her own mind buying another bike, but if I just buy her one she is alright with it. She hasn't ridden a road bike and we not sure she will love it like I do. Another reason she does not want to spend a lot of money. After her experience moving from a dept store bike to a proper bike she understands that a good bike, properly setup, will make it much more enjoyable to ride and can be the difference between enjoying riding or not. I would like her to be able to use this for family rides, sportives, credit card touring, trainer sessions.
Options:
Since we do a lot of 'trail' riding I had thought of getting her a CX bike and she could put slicks on it for sportives. However, if she can run 28mm tires on a road bike it should be plenty of width for anything that we normally ride. Because of aesthetics she prefers the Shimano 105, which I have no reservations about because that is what I have on my road bike and know that it is a good shifting setup. The 2 bikes that I am juggling between right now is:
Bike 1: $600 (reg $1400) Black Friday sale
Fitwell DeGroot 2
Unknown frame quality/ weight
Shimano 105 (10s) 50/34 &11-32
Road setup with 28mm tires (rim brakes)
Looks to have mounts for rear rack
Should be able to mount fenders
Bike 2: $1300 (approx. cost)
Canyon Inflite 8.0
Great bike
Shimano 105 (11s)- 46/36 & 11-32
CX setup with knobby tires (disc brakes)
Bike 3: ?
Wait until summer and go to LBS and pick out whatever is available
The option of bike 1 is the only thing that is pushing me to the impulse buy. I know that the standard answer is to go to the LBS and let her pick one that fits the best. Either of these bikes will be a mail order. We could go test ride some that have the closest geometry and then order, but this would put us outside of the black friday deal on bike 1. Also, compounding the issue is that the wife's ability to truly test ride a bike at this time is hindered by the fact that she is 8 months pregnant. As I spend a decent amount of time on the trainer with my bike, we had talked about her being able to utilize her bike on the trainer after she recovers from the pregnancy as a way to get a workout in while the baby is sleeping.
SO, let me know your thoughts. Bike 1, 2, or 3? And if 3, what do you recommend.