>>2064564what're you going to be riding on? roads?
unfortunately, "good" stuff is pretty expensive, partly because the economy is so bad, and partly because bicycles are a niche item, the economy of scale is unfavorable. I don't follow the new market closely, but you're probably going to spend upwards of $800 and probably closer to 1k these days for new. best value is used but there are caveats, you need to post the listings here and ask.
the main indicator of a bike's quality is mostly what component package ("group" or "groupset") it is sold with, and the manufacturers have them tiered out with different names depending on their performance and weight. so a Gucci bike will have a Shimano Dura Ace group and a Campagnolo Bora wheelset, for example. a pretty good bike will have, say, a Shimano Sora group (or the SRAM equivalent, or maybe Microshift Sword or a Sensah group) and may not have a "name" wheelset, although the hubs will often be the matching groupset model. and of course there's new models every year. what used to be top of the line quality a decade ago will now be in the middle of the line.
on the low end Walmart stuff, they tend to put the Shimano logo really big but these parts don't have a name, there's just a part number stamped into them somewhere.
it's mostly solved technology, I ride old and/or low tier components and like them. but the high end stuff is carbon and electronic now.
we are somewhat hostile to ebikes ITT but there are ebike threads for them elsewhere on /n/
