need advice on: Trek 1600 or Felt z70?

zhahme00@gmail.com

Hello,

I am interested in buying a new street/road/racing bicycle. I looked
around some of the local shops in my area (louisville) and test road a
couple as well.

At the first shop, which is about 2 miles to my house, I test rode a
Felt z70. The sales man said he was going to give it to me @ $1050.

At the second shop, which is about 10 miles from my house, I looked at
two bycicles though, I test rode only one.. they are Trek 1600 priced
at $1000 and Trek 2.1 priced $1150.

I like the Trek1600 as well as the Felt z70. I wanted to know how the
brands compare against each other and which one would be a better
purchase or should I pay slightly higher and get a better one. I do
not want to go over the $1000 mark by too much.

My primary reason is to enjoy the bike (casual riding in the evenings)
and commute to work which is about 10 miles away. My heart is set on a
racing bicycle .. and must admit that I am very excited about this
purchase.

I want to make the better investment here. Which is the newer/better
model, reliable, better parts used is what I would like to know. I
appreciate (and am looking forward to) your comments. :-)

Thank you.

Zee.

Ryan Cousineau

In article
<22860505-ed33-4d33-a469-df2ae61dc59f@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
zhahme00@gmail.com wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am interested in buying a new street/road/racing bicycle. I looked
> around some of the local shops in my area (louisville) and test road a
> couple as well.
>
> At the first shop, which is about 2 miles to my house, I test rode a
> Felt z70. The sales man said he was going to give it to me @ $1050.
>
> At the second shop, which is about 10 miles from my house, I looked at
> two bycicles though, I test rode only one.. they are Trek 1600 priced
> at $1000 and Trek 2.1 priced $1150.

The Pilot 2.1 is a "relaxed geometry" bike, which has some merit if
you're not racing. The current z70 appears to have a similar "century"
geometry. Without getting into details, this means the bars are higher,
which is more appropriate for non-racing applications.

> I like the Trek1600 as well as the Felt z70. I wanted to know how the
> brands compare against each other and which one would be a better
> purchase or should I pay slightly higher and get a better one. I do
> not want to go over the $1000 mark by too much.
>
> My primary reason is to enjoy the bike (casual riding in the evenings)
> and commute to work which is about 10 miles away. My heart is set on a
> racing bicycle .. and must admit that I am very excited about this
> purchase.

Good!

> I want to make the better investment here. Which is the newer/better
> model, reliable, better parts used is what I would like to know. I
> appreciate (and am looking forward to) your comments. :-)

The two bikes have virtually identical specs (105 group with an Ultegra
rear der) and are both good bikes. The Felt appears to have a slightly
less stupid wheelset, in that unless you're planning to do time trials,
the more frou-frou paired-spoke wheels of the Trek probably will be a
tad more fragile and yet cause no benefit.

In conclusion, I'd get the one from the better bike shop, as the two
bikes are essentially identical. Note that both have minor equipment
variations from year to year. On one hand, that means we could tell you
what year the bike was if you told us more about the specs. On the other
hand, that means we can't give you very good advice about the
particulars without knowing which year we're talking about. Does the
Felt have the bar-top mounted levers of the 2008? Because that's cool:

http://www.feltracing.com/08/produc...4,1515&pid=8678

Hm. The MSRP of the z70 is $1099. That's not much more than the deal the
bike shop offered you, but I wouldn't per se hold that against them.

If that's not good enough to choose, then get a Felt because they
sponsor the clean-cut and clean-living Slipstream-Chipotle team, which
wears cool argyle uniforms.

Trek, on the other hand, sponsors the evil Astana team, run by shifty
Belgians. Their uniforms look silly, too.

--
Ryan Cousineau rcousine@gmail.com http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."