Haven't bought one yet little hold on $ but will in a week or so. Debating on what color to pick because I think there both sorta ugly. Also just been riding 7 miles at 14mph thats slower than I expected but not sure what to expect starting on a 28 lb mountain bike.

 

I live in a pretty flat area with minimal hills. Will the 16 speeds be plenty?

The gears will be plenty. No worries at all. If I lived there, I'd probably ride fixed-gear all the time.

 

Will the 16 speeds be plenty?

They use to race the Tour de France on single speeds. 1 speed was enough.
They use to race the Tour de France on 5 speeds. 5 speeds was enough.
They use to race the Tour de France on 8 speeds. 8 speeds was enough.

 

The only down side to 8 speeds is that you probably have a couple of bigger jumps between cogs than you would on 10 speeds. 12-25 is a pretty common 8 speed cassette.

IIRC it goes 12-13-15-17-19-21-23-25. On a 12-25 ten speed you'd also have a 14 and 16t cog. It's still perfectly fine for a first bike.

It used to be the case with the older Shimano 8 speed group (2300) that you couldn't run a cassette with a bigger last cog than a 26t. Claris may have ended that limitation. But in any event, in the flatlands, your 25 cog on our smaller ring should be more than enough to get you up whatever hills you have.

 

bunnerrabbit, get your new bike and have fun.

I can be a ninja editor, too, iamnowcool ;-)

 

Buy according to the 4 famous Fs: Fit, Feel, Finish, 'Fordability,

 

The Claris shifters are very good shifters and function just like higher and highest level shifters. No thumb button on Claris like there is on lower-level shifters.

16 speeds are plenty. More speeds doesn't really mean "much lower and much higher gears," but offer more gears in between the highest and the lowest gear. This allows an experienced rider to fine-tune his gearing a little better to suit the conditions. Icing on the cake, so to speak.

If you're not concerned about assembly, I don't see a problem with the Motobecane. Make sure it's a reasonably good fit and don't buy "upgrades" for it other than perhaps a more comfortable saddle and fancier pedals.