So me and my boyfriend are looking at starting biking. He will be biking about 6 miles to campus for his classes 3-5 times a week and I plan on biking to work, which is 4.2 miles if I take roads, or 7.1 if I take the independent bike trail (it's paved) our city has set up.

I will likely only be carrying a lunchbox to work and maybe a laptop one day a week. However my boyfriend will likely be carrying books, and on his heaviest days could have about 40lb of books and assorted class materials.

I originally bought a bike from walmart and am unhappy with it, and my boyfriend has made the rounds around all the local bike shops and has fell in love with this bike: Felt Verza Fit 1 2014 ? Pedal The Planet

He drug me out to that shop and I really liked the similar model Felt Verza Fit 2 2014 ? Pedal The Planet that's much cheaper. However, I liked the shifters on the bike he picked out.

Here's my question, the price difference between these two bikes, and the walmart bike is quite considerable and way more than I expected to pay for a bike. Because of this I want to make sure I'm getting a good deal. I don't think we'll have any issues using them. Are these bikes a good value? Should I be looking somewhere else or for something else?

Additionally, is it possible to put the similar shifters from the Verza fit 2 on the Verza fit 1? One is a SRAM and the other is a Shimano.