Not sure how relevant this is as this thread is quite old and the question has changed a bit...
I researched buying a bike in Europe and found it to be too bloody expensive. It was cheaper for me to buy my bike in NY, ship it over and if I so desire, ship it back for less than it would have cost here. My bike was used when purchased, but I was comparing it to comparable bikes in Europe.
The other benefit of doing it the way I did, was I bought the bike a few months before I left and had plenty of time to ride and tinker with it to get myself super comfortable with it.
my $0.02
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