Finally made a decision and bought a bike. Ended up going back to a mountain bike; I just didn’t want to be confined to road only, but who knows how much real off roading I’ll ever do.

Ended up with a Gary Fisher Wahoo. Surprisingly, there really weren’t a lot of options in the $500-$600 range for bikes. I don’t know why it surprised me, my bridgestone that I bought back in college was $550. And it didn’t have a front fork and definitely didn’t have disc brakes.

Having ridden it for just a bit (once to work and back, approx. 8 miles) a couple of observations. The frame is a lot lighter than I remember bike frames. Aluminum for frames was at the high end back in the day, so it caught me off guard that most everything is now. Which, and maybe this in my head, makes the bikes I tested feel a bit strange. It feels like the heaviest parts of the bike are the extremities. Also feels like just about everything on this bike, except for the frame and rear derailer, is pretty low end. Hopefully it holds up to a bit of abuse. I don’t want to go back to Heather for money to upgrade parts for a year or two if I can help it. The front fork has a lock out on it, which the other bikes I looked at didn’t have. That being said, the front fork bottoms out easy. Then again, I’m not going to pounding it all that hard anyway. The disc brakes seem to be more gimmick than useful; the other bikes I looked it with standard rim clamp brakes stopped much better. Sales person told me they’d bed in and start working much better; hasn’t happened yet, doubting it ever will.

Now I just need to work on upgrading the legs so hills don’t kill me, and need to man up and get a set of clipless pedals. I was all set and then my neighbor busted his leg when him and his bike went separate directions but his cleat didn’t release.