Well, I'm hoping to stay as low priced as possible... I don't have time for recreational biking anymore so I'm sticking to a good bike that will get me to school and back.

I thought steel was historically better than aluminum frames, but is the alpha black frame good? I know I'll have to test ride it, one of these days I'll trek over to the trek store. The Jamis store is right next to school, I test rode the Allegro today since they didn't have a Coda in my size... even if it was an aluminum frame that was pretty decent.

So that also throws the Allegro into the mix... shifting was rough but the ride was so smooth. I'm less worried about aluminum frames now.

I think it comes down to the frame choice:

Jamis Coda: steel
Jamis Allegro: aluminum
Trek 7.1FX: white aluminum
Trek 7.2FX: black aluminum
Trek PDX: ???

Let me update my original posts...