Need a road bike- but have no clue!

[no_oops]

lol. Wow. I had no idea this much thought went into getting a bike or this much money. I mean, holy crap, $500 sounds like a lot to me, but I'm certainly not someone to go buy. I usually buy my bikes at k-mart

[veginator]

Like several people have said, although it's certainly worthwhile to look for used bikes to save some money, definitely get it checked out by somebody who knows what they're doing before you buy it. Personally I didn't have much like finding a good used bike when I was shopping for a bike last summer. I wound up getting a new Giant road bike. It was the least expensive decent road bike I found, and it was about $650. Despite being their bottom-of-the-line road bike, I think it's a very good bike, with decent hardware and a fairly lightweight aluminum frame. It's far from the lightest bike around, but it's plenty light enough that it doesn't feel sluggish on the road.