Thank you all so much for the feedback - its invaluable. I spent a chunk of the day yesterday looking around at LBSes. I swear the nicest people in the world work at these stores.
I do live in Canada, so Bikes Direct is more of a pain than I want to worry about. Plus I generally like to buy local.
The bike at MEC seems interesting. I'm just going to stretch the budget and get what made me happy. I'll test ride the MEC bike today and compare. So, I guess its down to three readily available in my area around that price range. So between these three are there any "gotchas" that I might be missing:
Norco Threshold a3 2013 -
http://99bikes.com.au/norco-threshol...ilver-red-2013
Mec Col Ltd -
http://www.mec.ca/product/5027-245/m...10+50002+50208
and the Trek 1.1c 2014 -
http://shop.bushtukah.com/product/14...m#.UlqIQRYT_0c
I'm sure its a bit Apples to Oranges, but I want to make sure I have not overlooked anything more than which one is better. Although I welcome opinions on that as well.
Thanks again!