I'm in a little different camp than most of the BF family. Being that my wife and I have ridden bikes since we got married back in 72 and still prefer ridding hybrids. Most here started with hybrids and worked there way up to a "real bike"
. That said my over 60 year old body just fits the hybrid geometry better than a road bike. I still use a road bike once in a while as I have a Giant TCR Composite. We ride almost every day as we live in FL and are retired. Last year was a little over 8,000 miles on our Giant Escape RX 0s. We loved these bikes so much that this winter we bought a couple of Giant Escape RX Composites for this year. While we take care of our rides, they do spend a fair amount of time hanging off the back of our RV touring the country. IMHO you can't do much better than Giants for the $$. If you want to read the threads I have on the Escapes here are the links:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...X-0?highlight= and
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...(s)?highlight=
Good luck with your decision.