Quote Originally Posted by ladyfish
frankly, all that stuff is quite confusing to me. And I'm a numbers person. You have to ride them. Go to the LBS and play! Sit on them, get them fitted, go for a ride. You will soon learn just exactly what you like and dislike. Then you can give more weight to the geometry once you have an idea of what works for you..
Ladyfish -- EVERYTHING about bikes confuses me! I do plan to ride as I get more serious about a road bike for me. I decided I need to have a bit more understanding of what makes bikes different, and what makes some bikes cost $300 and some cost $3000 before I buy the next one. We kind of blindly bought low end Comfort-Beasts this spring, since we had no idea just what we were buying, they felt like a huge improvement over what we had before, and we didn't have a clue what we were getting into when it came to our new summer sport!

It didn't take long for me to decide that I want a road bike eventually. I want a little bit more idea of what I want in a bike than blue or green paint next time, you know? So, I've been looking at parts and what they might do for me all summer. The other night, a casual glance at a bunch of thumbnails showed me that there really are visible differences that go beyond the consmetic, and reading the differing descriptions about various bikes, I started to get interested in what makes bike A different from bike B different structurally -- the relaxed/aggressive thing, y'know?

Perhaps DH is rubbing off on me. I used to be much more impulse-driven...
(we were looking at lawn mowers yesterday. He asked if self-propelled is really worth doubling the price of the cheap mower -- I asked if he was going to mow the back yard. He said no, I said, then self-propelled is pretty important, if I have to mow that hill! Now he thinks we should have the old mower repaired one more time.)

Quote Originally Posted by ladyfish
Good luck. I tried out several bikes, and it kept coming back to how good I felt on the one I bought. Go play at the LBS.
Thank you for your input! It's all going to be helpful!

Karen in Boise