Originally Posted by
knobster
$700 each is going to be a hard price point to find anything higher than Sora. Sora works just fine though. Try and look at more than just Redline. There are several manufactures that product bikes in that range so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding something that'll work. Redline is a good bike though and a good value. Others that would fall in that line would be Fuji and the new 2010 line of Specialized Tricross models. Ask you shops for any models they are wanting to off load like the 2008/2009 models. You can get some good deals that way.
I went to a couple more shops today to check out the Felt F95 and see what else they had. So far I have yet to find a shop that has any cross bikes in stock to actually ride. The closest I have gotten is a shop with a Kona Jake but it was too small for me. The guy at the Felt shop told me though that the 2010 model F95 is inferior to last year's model and costs more. So far it looks like the Kona Jake seems to have the best price and components out of all the others and one shop is selling them for $799 right now which if I am not mistaken is $100 off. Having a strict budget kinda sucks so we are seriously contemplating holding off a couple of months and going with 2 Jakes.