Hi there! I rather new to the forum, having only browsed here for a couple days, but I found many comments useful and need some help.

I had a rather cheap bike (Geoniks) that was a folding bike probably built here in South Korea. (I am located in Korea, btw) It started to have problems rather quickly, starting with the stem coming loose and bending, rendering the folding capabilities null and void, followed by other things slowly coming undone. I tend to ride my bike hard. Though I don't do any real mountain biking here in Korea (I am not aware of any trails that you can mountain bike here) the roads and sidewalks are not always the smoothest things in the world. I ride for pleasure, but when I ride, I tend to ride a variety of distances, from only an hour to 4 hours (when my old bike was in better shape). My eventual goal is to ride from Seoul to Busan, roughly 600 km. So I need a bike that is relatively light, but more importantly, sturdy to handle the curbs, bumps, holes, and whatever else I might run into.

Browsing here and other forums, and being originally from Wisconsin, I gravitated to Trek, a local company, and from that, came up with 3 different series, most of them suggested here, the DS, FX, and 3 series. My price range is in the lower end of the spectrum, at about 500-600 USD.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a bike shop here in Korea that actually allows me to RIDE the bike before buying, a rather odd thing, I think. This makes my decision making rather difficult. With that in mind, any tips or suggestions of which bike would be best? Thanks all!