Hi guys,

It's been about 5 years since I last seriously biked. I used to commute to work, but my old but trusty Nishiki mountain bike got stolen out of our garage. It was giving me some back pain and having just got married and bought a house I soon got wrapped up in other things and 5 years passed.

Well, I've finally decided to get back into it. I've got a 10 mile commute each way now and am looking for something a little more appropriate for the ride than a mountain bike. I figured since I'm going to be going and testing out bikes I'd write down some of my thoughts and tests in this thread.

Last night I tried out my first two bikes. I'll post a short review of the first one below and follow up with more as I try them.

Bike: Torker Graduate
Transmission: Sturmey Archer 5-speed gear hub
Brakes: Sturmey Archer drum brakes
frame: "tri-moly" (ie part steel part chro-moly)
tires: 700x32
Bikeshop Price: $495

Notes: I *really* wanted to like this bike. There was only one dealer in the city that actually had one I could test out. I still might decide to go with it. Overall the bike is basic but nice looking. Shifting is alright but not as smooth as the Nexus. The gripshifters felt cheap and muddy compared to the gripshift 500s on my old Nishiki. It can be hard to shift if you don't stop peddling, especially uphill. 3rd gear sometimes jumped. I'm hoping that was just a calibration issue. The gearing was fairly nice. Not a whole lot of range but sufficient for most purposes. The brakes were fantastic. The rear brakes were strong enough to perform a skid stop but the fronts had a bit less stopping power. They were *very* smooth and overall I far preferred them to rim brakes. Given their reputation for longevity and all-season performance I'd say this is probably the best selling point for this bike. The geometry isn't very aggressive so it'll probably be better for my back but definitely doesn't feel like a fast bike. Otherwise the only other thing I noticed is that the included fenders are really cheap and the front one constantly rattled.

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Mark