[AndrwSwitch]

For me, 19" would be too big. They're not hugely different sizes, but as you start dialing in your cockpit setup, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them starts to seem too long or too heavy or light on the front wheel.

It sounds like there will always be another deal available to you. Getting bike size right is really important and I think it got easier once I'd nailed it on a bike the first time. So you might wait on the road bike until you've made a decision you're confident in on the mountain bikes. MTB endurance is more fun than a road century anyway.

 

[mtnbiker88]

It is but I do have friends that ride road bikes and I have owned some and test ridden all the ones in the store. My old bike a 2012 hardrock sport 29er was a 21" Frame and was fine, did 200 miles on it before selling it to pay for the redline I ride now. I learned sizing pretty quickly started out on a freek giant recon. ...13.5" put 20 miles or so on it before learning sizing...I just thought everyone's knees hit the handlebars and got a 17.5" ironhorse warrior sport. I have to credit those road bike friends for getting me back into it all and the redline is a great commuter bike but a real road bike would be nice and I've pretty much sized myself on one or two of every kind of bike i could get my hands on in the past year. Anything in a 52-56cm road bike will fit given the right stem/seatpost bars and spacer setup. 17.5 is as small as I would go 19 feels 21 is okay, in a hard tail I had a 21 cannondale rush and it felt a mile too big. Just something about it. Who knows deal may fall through but that's my job to find deals every day that's why I'm sitting out in this wonderful DC weather waiting on a liquidation auction to start at 23 degrees outside.