"A newcomer to this price range of road bikes is Felt, and it is really the only company to give Giant even-steven competition. All the other brands - Bianchi, Trek, Lemond, Cannondale, and others - are a step or two behind in our view. With Felt and Giant you get a Tiagra- or 105-equipped bike for a hundred to two hundred dollars less than similarly equipped from any of the other companies. We go profile the major brands and models in this category in our overview of entry-level road race.
We won't go into the specific models we'd recommend, because "under $1500" is a large range, and you can find good bikes as low as $600 with Felt and Giant. With any of the other brands, I wouldn't spend less than $750. If you can, buy a bike with Shimano's Tiagra components. They're the second level up from Sora, which is the least-expensive component lineup from the Japanese component maker. Tiagra-equipped bikes from Felt and Giant will sell in the low-to-mid $700s, and with the other brands probably in the $900s. Again, we go through it all in our road bike overview on this site."
The hyperlinks "overview of entry-level road race" and "road bike overview". Send me to a dead end. Anyone know if this content is available somewhere on the site?
We won't go into the specific models we'd recommend, because "under $1500" is a large range, and you can find good bikes as low as $600 with Felt and Giant. With any of the other brands, I wouldn't spend less than $750. If you can, buy a bike with Shimano's Tiagra components. They're the second level up from Sora, which is the least-expensive component lineup from the Japanese component maker. Tiagra-equipped bikes from Felt and Giant will sell in the low-to-mid $700s, and with the other brands probably in the $900s. Again, we go through it all in our road bike overview on this site."
The hyperlinks "overview of entry-level road race" and "road bike overview". Send me to a dead end. Anyone know if this content is available somewhere on the site?