thoughts on this for my first road bike
i’ll admit i don’t know much about bikes. i am a runner looking to supplement some running miles for cycling miles. i want an introductory road bike and don’t want to spend too much on it. i want some opinions on this specific bike.

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Shortly after adopting her. Beautiful.
We said goodbye to our beautiful angel Saga yesterday.
She was just over 2 years old when we adopted her on February 25th from the Houston SPCA. She was timid, still underweight but ever so sweet. She had been rescued by ambulance from Pyometra, a very serious infection of her uterus and a hemorrhaged vulva. She was malnourished and had evidence of being a mother. She was spayed and had both her uterus and ovaries removed.
First time meeting her
The night before we went to the shelter her photo appeared on the website - it was our second visit looking for a furry friend, we were the fist family to see her. We didn't know much about Great Pyrenees besides some 'famous' ones on social media. And we were looking for a medium sized dog (lol) but talking with the shelter volunteer who also fostered her for a week assured us that she was the perfect dog for us. We are a couple recently married in an apartment, no kids, no cats, no other pets. We didn't have the schedule to take care of a puppy and just wanted a companion. We were still unsure about the decision at first because it wasn't what we were initially expecting but there was a line of families also waiting to meet her.
Saga was perfect.
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We were so scared at first, the independent thinker, her unknown past, she didn't play, and if she did and saw you watching she would just lay down. She was alarmingly docile. It was unreal how calm and sweet she was. Within days we also took her for a general checkup with a vet we picked out. They were so surprised we had only had her for a few days but we figured it was a bit like buying a car - trust but verify. She quickly got into mischief, stealing food, climbing on furniture and destroying our door frame.
We barely left a chair untucked
Left it for only a minute
Separation anxiety had her chewing through the MDF, chewed right through despite the bitter apple.
2 weeks in, we discovered she had tapeworms. The anti flea and tick she was given was for <60 lbs. but we adopted her at 60 lbs, It might have been necessary when she was underweight but now we were behind. The vet asked if she was lethargic and my wife tearily replied yes. A single dewormer and a few days started to turn things around.
She started gaining weight, her coat started to come in, her tail looked less like a wiring tail of a rodent and more like the floofball she'd become. A couple weeks later she was avoiding stairs and had a couple cries - we were so worried that she had some kind of early onset his dysplasia - something developmentally when she was still going but under nourished. Luckily it seemed to only be a soft-tissue problem, she was already on the upswing when we mad it to the vet and after a few days of pain relievers and medication she was back to her happy - albeit separation anxious mess. We avoiding crating her because she came from a crowded hoarding environment (and is a rather large dog), we erected barriers in our apartment and she quickly learned she could climb over the couch to get around and onto the dining room table.
As part of the routine bloodwork from her initial vet checkups we got a call she was positive for Heartworm. The vet asked my wife if Saga would play and then just suddenly stop, my teary eyed wife replied yes. We had turned down another dog because she was already active with heartworm and didn't know how we would manage a new and energetic pet to stay calm through their treatment and as first time pet owners (we both had family dogs growing up) weren't sure if we would be able to crack it with our work schedules.
We jumped right in and got her on doxy and the fast-kill method. 30 days of preparatory anti-infection medicine, 30 days of waiting, her first shot, and then a month later two more. She was originally scheduled for her first shot this past Wednesday - but if you're reading this you probably already know that didn't happen.
Her coat came in so beautifully - this was before she starting to shed it!
After her first 'long' walk with Dad.
The next 2 months were amazing. She taught us about the Pyr Paw, her stubborn walks, her energy conservatism - er... efficiency... We learned she loved sand at a local sand volleyball court and park we didn't even know existed a mile from where we live. She still didn't know how to play, just pawing and darting around with afternoon zoomies. We said that we could never predict her next move. She ended up loving a playing with a Gatorade bottle the way it would erratically flip across the room. On her walks she would take census of all the other animals and where they had recently peed, she'd inspect the parking garage for stray cats and sniff every flower. We often struggled to convince her the route to take. She loved the hum are cars and watched the nearby highway for a while. But she hated loud popping sounds, fireworks, and thunder. Rain made her depressed.
She taught us how to be patient. To slow down and enjoy nature, the sights sounds, and smells.
The moment her paws touched the sand she went crazy.
At the beginning of last week the whine came back climbing the stairs. She started to whimper when getting up. We called the vet immediately for another round of medication. It continued to get worse, she cried when standing but is would strangely disappear shortly after leaving the apartment. She was her normal self when out and about.
Later in the week an in-person vet appointment took more x-rays and radiology returned a potential diagnosis of Spondylosis which the vet explained was like a bony bridge between two vertebrae - we understand now that it's a fairly general term for various abnormalities of the spine bone. We weren't going to let her jump out of the back my car anymore, even though I've always had to help her up.
Was she frequently sad or was it just the Pyreense eyes?
She didn't improve. At this point she would scream bloody murder when getting up, be okay outside, but the tail was rare, and she slowed quicker. The Texas heat was also starting to come in. Coming home she would immediately find her bed and rest. She wouldn't rise except to go out, it took both of us to orchestrate so she she could get clipped in and bolt out the door in pain, otherwise she would continue to scream and pull at the leash and have to move to get the door open causing more pain. Thursday was the last day she would eat or drink standing up.
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We called the vet before the weekend at we increased all her medication to the maximum dosage. The next day was no different. The day after she had lower energy but no difference in pain.
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It's now this past Monday, and we asked to change her Wednesday Heartworm appointment to the bloodwork that would be needed by the neurologist for a baseline. Unfortunately they couldn't start the referral process until afterwards even though we knew how limited specialist appts would be. We got the appointment moved up a day to Tuesday. The specialist on Monday had appointments for Tues/Wed/Thurs available. As soon as the bloodwork was done we were able to get a specialist appointment the next morning. The vet in seeing her rapid decline and the drugs not making enough of a distance recommended emergency care. But because she would still eat and drink, although she was growing pickier and wouldn't rise she would still bear the pain to go outside.
The neurologist informed us that she was fairly confident because of the level of pain (which was total because the appointment that morning required her to be off her meds) that she had discospondylitis, a bacterial or fungal intention of the spine which was eroding her bone. An MRI to confirm would cost $4,500, $5,800 with a spinal tap. Then bloodwork would try to identify the exact nature of the infection so the proper anti-biotics could be prescribed. The bill for that day would have been 7 grand. And we used to joke that we avoided waitlists and breeders asking several grand for a Golden Retriever (my wife's favorite - and saga was supposedly a retriever mix). We started to joke that she would cost as much as our recent honeymoon. And after that she'd have to resume Heartworrm treatment for another $1,200-2,000 depending on if we needed to start over.
There's a chance that identifying the exact infection could become difficult. There is a small percentage of dogs where treatment doesn't take at all. She'd be on medication for a year, but if we got lucky on the treatment she could feel better as quickly as a week although some damage would still be permanent. We thought about forgoing the MRI as that was absolutely not able to be afforded - the vet was fairly confident in the diagnosis, but we would never have true diagnosis, or a full picture on the state of her spine. If the infection ever came back, or if more scans were needed to track the process of treatment we would be out of luck anyways.
We made the decision to end her pain, asked for a heavy duty drug to get her back on the feet for the afternoon and went to a local park, bought her Chic Fil A even though we avoided chicken because we read the Pyrenees might be allergic, we bought her soft serve from Dairy Queen. In her last week as she grew picky we cooked her rinsed hamburger and her bacon treats became real bacon. We took her on a scenic drive through the city and parks which she loved watching all the commotion and helped her cool off because the park was quickly getting hot and she wasn't drinking much.
For comfort she would press her head into our arms or sleep with her head tucked against some furniture.
We returned to the animal hospital and spent another hour or two until hitting the doorbell. She knew in the end, she was in so much pain. My wife and I were holding hands, Saga rested her head my lap, which was completely out of character for her - she was not a cuddly dog, but she loved pets, and don't you dare stop in fear of the pyr paw. The pyr paw was so weak in the end... There we a surprising amount of relief in the end when she went to sleep - the past couple of night I had my phone open to my home cameras trained on her various beds praying she would sleep instead of panting her way through the night. Erupting out of sleep at 3am as she cried out trying to shift positions. She was finally able to rest.
We love you.
The three months she had with us was the best in her life. We got her healthy enough to feel the sun and the wind. The reality was that she was always in pain - she just wouldn't let us know. She gave us everything she had left and we gave her everything we had. We've been reflecting on how fast it ended up being but also the way we rationalized some of her behaviors as being a pyrenees - or how they were explained by the tapeworms, and how they were explained by the heartworm. In the end all of our furniture had been flipped up to make sure she didn't get caught with sharp turns. We moved her two beds together to form one large bed because she would often have to shift in ways that left part of her body hanging off the side. Nobody was sleeping. She was our world and we changed the world to make it the way she wanted - those pyrenees always had to have it their way or the highway.
We didn't get the chance to take her to the beach.
We didn't get to explore all the roads she stubbornly wanted to explore.
We didn't get the the opportunity to run off leash.
But we gave her all the love and the world and we were so rewarded in return. Mommy and Daddy love you Saga, you are free to chase all the squirrels you want. There are no trucks with air brakes, no fireworks, no bursting water pipes, no thunderstorms where you are now. You were the perfect 'little' angel, and we love you so so very much.
She was the bravest of them all.

Rest in Peace.