Find a helpful bike shop with a decent range of stock. Then buy whatever brand they sell. This will give greast benefit in advice and sypport while you learn all about car-free lifestyle.There is not much cifference between makes at your price. Yhe ones you mentioned are good, but also look at cyclocross bikes, as the drop bars give more choice of hand position on long rides and in headwinds. They tend to have shorter frames than racing bikes so you are not as stretched out, and you can have the bars up near seat level. When I used to ride all winter I had a cheap beater bike with 3 sp hub gears to save my nice bike from the ravages of the salt.