Buying a new bike...need info

You can get some pointers from people here but you may not be able to shake that awkward feeling when you are in the store.  The sales person (unless you luck into a really nice one) will pick up on that and might try to take advantage of you.  Tell them you have a "coach" and you were told to look for certain things and then you have to run it past your "coach".  You can use these BT'ers who know tons about bikes to run your choices past to see if you are getting a good deal or not.  The salesperson doesn't need to know that your "coach" is an online community.  Tap the knowledge of BT to get yourself the best bike you can.  That way, if you get into haggling you can also use your "coach" like car salesman say "let me check with my boss".

I'd offer to help if I knew enough about bikes, but I'll bet one or two of these guys would even offer you to be able to call them for last minute decisions when you are standing in the bike shop trying to make the deal. 

If you called me you'd end up leaving on a tricycle.  "But he said it was a TRI-cycle, honey!"

True but that "free fitting" might last all of 1 minute which mine did.  Bike fittings take time and make all the difference.   When I bought my bike, the salesperson had me stand next to the seat and then over the frame. Took him less than a minute to fit me and I paid for it for over a month. Sore knees and back.  Then took my bike to a fitter who worked on my angles, seat, and stem.  No more pain. Best $50.00 I ever spent.  A good bike fit can make you want to ride or make you want to bag the workout.

Just stay away from PERFORMANCE BIKE SHOP IN BONITA, CA.  There that will teach you to blow me off when I ask if the bike fit could be wrong. That and the fact you get no more of my money.   

A good shop will have a 'fit kit'.  It's a strange looking stationary bike where all the parts are adjustable.  They can make it into just about any frame geometry they want.  They do some initial measurements, set it up and have you get on.  Then as you ride, they tweak the settings until it fits.  If you are serious, some shops have it hooked up to a watt meter, so they can assess how the geometry is affecting your power output.  There is a shop in Indy that will do this for about $100.

The results of the fit kit will tell you what geometry is ideal.  Then you can look at other bikes and find one with as close to that geometry as you can, or you can have a custom frame built up for you.  Once you find the bike you want and buy it, then you have to go through the process again on that frame to tweak and fine tune the fit, especially if your new frame isn't exactly the dimensions of the ideal fit. 

You don't HAVE to use a fit kit for a good fit.  Some shops will use a series of measurements and some math (or look up tables) to figure out your ideal geometry.  Just be prepared to get REALLY familiar with your fitter and make sure you ride a good varriety of frames on both sides of the measurments, as this method will put you in the ball park (well more like the infield) but won't tell you exactly what frame you need.  You'll also need to spend more time with them to get your seat height, stem length and seat-bars drop all figured out.

so if you get nothing more out of this post, just get this:  If he looks at you and tells you that you want a XX cm bike, grabs one and tells you to go ride, do so.  Get in your car and ride to another shop.

First you need to decide if you want a road bike or tri bike.  Here is a good article on the difference.

http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/bikes/difference.shtml

Alot of bikes use shimano components.  If you are looking at Trek bikes you can go to www.trekbikes.com and see what bikes have which components and they rate them as well.  This will give you some ideas of what they are talking about when they say 105 vs ultegra vs dura-ace.  I would start with the straps and once you get use to them, then upgrade to clipless. and yes, you do clip in to clipless.  its weird, i know.  Tires clincher vs tubular.  They are basicly the same, tubular are used for racing and clincher are an everyday type wheel.  You can also type in bike terminology into google and learn what chainrings, cassettes and cogs are.

If i can be of any help, just let me know.