My view on entry level, a marketing term for a road bike thats good enough to train or even compete on, perhaps called entry level to try and encourage cyclists to upgrade or buy more expensive bikes in the hope of improved performance.
For most cyclists (myself included) entry level would be all they require and perhaps the best performance improvements could be made in the kitchen rather than on there bike.
Maybe some people like to have (in their opinion) better looking / better [more expensively] specced / different branded / lighter bikes or whatever regardless of their own 'cycling performance' (whatever that might mean, unless you're a pro trying to win every race) or indeed their shape/size/weight
I'll never be a high performance racing snake, but that won't stop me spending £3k maybe more on a bike in the future (as long as I can justify the outlay to myself, which is ultimately all that matters). I'm also not interestied in 'training' (for what?), or riding with a club and certainly not racing. For me (and I'm sure many other cyclists) it comes down to just enjoying riding my bike and hitting whatever meaningless (to anyone else) personal targets I may choose to set myself.
You might want to train or race, but really don't assume that everyone who rides a road bike (drop handlebars, skinny tyres, or just a bike that can be ridden on the road, i.e. any
) wants the same.
Yes, 'entry level' is marketing / magazine review bollocks and will mean something different to every person (or indeed nothing)
