tinrib – interesting, thanks.
Simondbarnes – perfectly well is perfectly good enough for me. I have found on the current commuter that deore is as good as XT after a week or two of salt / grit / general gunk from the road.
For the past two / three years being doing 100 miles a week on a hardtail with slicks on so I am quite excited about moving to a proper bike!
My current commuter is fast dying, the frame is bent, front wheel rim is v braked to an inch of its life, forks uppers are rusting badly and thier are not liking being locked out 100% of the time, rear wheel bearings are shot as the rear triangle is slightly bent, seat post has a worrying paint effect going on at the bottom bracket (I have not checked as I dont want to know if its a crack!), headset is dying but the bike has done about 15k miles since I got it so its not done to badly.
Quite excited about a road bike. I was looking at cross stuff with disks but they are out of what I can stretch to… plus my granda doesnt approve of disk brakes!
David.
[edit – removed my extreme over use of !]