Say... I don't know much about either of these but I HAVE read that Spyres are good brakes. It sounds to me like you may have entered the very familiar 'analysis paralysis' state where one starts obsessing over the smallest of details, hoping someone else comes with with the answer for them. My guess is that you can probably get either bike and if it's a comfortable ride (and from the geometry it seems like either both or neither will be comfortable) then you will never regret your purchase. But maybe someone will come up with good advice regarding the geometries... let's see.

Hey, you said any comments...

P.S. Any way you can hunt down a 2017 version?