Originally Posted by
ocelotito
I agree. I've been buying Trek bikes since the 90's (I used to live in DC) and they always had the exact model I wanted to try. Now, every time I wanted to try a bike, they only let me if they had it in any of their stores. Otherwise, they wanted me to pay and try it. I tried the Shift 1 and loved it but took it up a hill and thought that maybe I could do better with more gears. Then they only had a Shift 3. I wanted to see if the suspension changed the handling of the bike. But even the suspension is different, so it does change it.
You should probably see about exchanging it for the one you really wanted in the first place.
Going forward, and a lesson for others is, don't buy a bike site unseen. If the LBS wants to build up a bike to test ride, that is fine, but you should have no obligation to buy it if you don't like it.