Slim is always pushing the Coda, it's a nice bike (I've owned one) but not anything spectacular. The geometry is on the aggressive, stretched out side which I didn't care for (I have a road bike for that.) You're in Pasadena so I'd skip the disk brakes and get the Comp model if you go with the Coda. Don't worry about the cassette, if you don't like it you can always buy a tighter spaced SRAM PG-950 for $25 and have your LBS install it for $5-10. Same thing with tires, they are cheap and easy to replace so don't make your decision based on what comes stock on the bike.