Where to start with a bike upgrade?

Thanks for the tips. I took a trip to my LBS at lunchtime and soon realised the same thing - I'd spend nearly half the price of a new bike by getting wheels, tyres & upgrading the drivetrain.

Machiavelo - What did you mean about the MFN status making the Dual affordable? I have been thinking about getting one imported and paying shipping but would have to pay 17.5% VAT on the price when it entered the country. I am in the US in a few weeks and even wondered about bringing one back with me, but that means I have to find soemthing in the limited time and travel I have in SD. Even with taxes, assuming I could get the airline to carry it and not damage it, it would save me about £500/$800!

The other question is tri bike or road bike? My LBS tried to push me on road bikes (Trek or Spesh) although they did have a Trek Equinox 7 there as well. Their argument was the tri bikes are stiffer (more uncomfortable) ride, more expensive, less suited to longer training rides etc. I took a few Treks around the block (1400, 1500 a carbon one) and a Spec Allez Comp - all felt great with the Specialized feeling much smaller under me and a much less harsh ride. I cant imagine getting tri bars on the Treks as they seem very stretched already but the Allez seemed less of a reach and more suited to tri bars. I cant help feeling I need to test ride a tri bike as well and really see if its any less suited to what I do.

I think I need to speak with a tri specific bike shop and get their input as well.....

Yes - its San Diego. I arrive on the Sat evening but fly out on the Thursday and have a bit of a tight schedule. I'm sure it could be done and can only imagine the look on my boss' face when I turn up at the airport with a bike box!

I wil visit a top tri specific bike shop tomorrow and they provide a custom measure/fit system so at the worst case I could get my measurements and make sure I get the right bike when I choose one. They also stock Cervelo and have the Dual so really fancy a look at that. They are in London so not best sited for a test ride though.....

Thanks all - will check out those sites and see what the final price after taxes, shipping etc are.

Wow - this is fun, no idea how to convince my wife I need a new bike?

You've not my wife then.....A doctor with a large case of nasty drugs and tools at her disposal, and she starts Body Combat classes on Friday......

Maybe I can phone her from America and tell her what I found, or perhaps get a friend to mail in a letter saying I won the Triathlete magazine bike competition or something. Better still, I can tell her Santa came early......

So I went to another specialist bike shop today and got carefully measured. The outcome was that I don't want a tri specific bike as they are just too severe set up and I need something a little more relaxed, but will look at a road setup that I can add tri-bars to. (But wow, those Cervelo's are seriously sexy bikes!!!!!)

They didn't share my personal reports with me (as I didn't pay them $50 for the sizing) so I cant take their efforts and just shop around on the web, but I'm leaning towards a custom built bike using a handbuilt Italian frame (branded Sigma and as rode by Andrew Johns in Athens recently) built up to my sizes and spec on everything else. It will work out a touch more expensive than an off-the-peg Trek but I would need to swop out a couple of bits on one of those anyway to get it fitted correctly, so the overall wouldn't be much different.

The real winner is that they also had a 2003 Look carbon frame hanging up on special offer (50% of original list) that is my size and could be built up the same as the Alu frame for only a few $ more! Now I'm really tempted and to cap it all it was in a 'nude' carbon finish that looked SOOOOO cool.

I really think this is the way to go but they dont have proper demo bikes for me to spend any time on. They offered me the chance to ride a couple of the staff bikes, one alu and one carbon and both similar to thhe frames I looked at, but this are just short 'round the block' rides and wont be to my size so might illustrate the difference between frame materials but I dont feeel they will offer much else.

Any thoughts appreciated.......