thanks everyone,

that was pretty much the setup I was thinking of tsl, the problem I had with the portland was that the current model specs seem to be a fair step down for the price (mostly tiagra). How much do you think you need the disc brakes? would you be happy doing your commute with canti's? and how long is your commute by the way?

the two bikes I'm looking at, the jake the snake is alu, but no disc brakes, while the ***** is steel, which I wasn't sure about and would need to double check the tire clearance.

I'm actually about an hour NE of zurich, the commute has about 1200 feet of drop, so riding home there's one decent long hill at the end (last 4 miles) otherwise mostly flat. There is a train option for the days where the hill is to much though. In the morning, I think the major problem will be staying warm on a long (for me) descent. From what I've heard the roads here are plowed very quickly, so I would imagine it would not be deep drifts I would have to worry about, although I have zero exp with snow so I'm not taking anything for granted.