I bought a road bike last July, and since buying it I’ve been pretty happy. This year I mostly used it as transportation to and from school, but recently I’ve been riding it a lot more as a recreational/exercise activity. Irvine has a great network of bike paths, and I’ve had a ton of fun exploring areas of town that I wouldn’t normally see in a car. It is also extremely exhilarating to see how fast I can go down some of the hills around the area. Also, after a short morning ride (5-6 miles) I feel better throughout the day than I would if I got no exercise. On weekends it’s pretty fun to see how far I can go before I get too tired and have to turn around.
As far as upkeep goes, I haven’t taken care of it as much as I should have, but fortunately when you buy a bike from Performance they give you free tune-ups for the lifetime of the bike. As far as overall customer care goes, however, I would recommend other local bike shops over Performance, since Performance is such a large corporation. It often seems that they don’t really drive home the importance of good customer service to their employees.
Anyways, getting a bike was one of the better decisions I’ve made this year, so I recommend it to anyone and everyone.