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Happy Feet, wonderful machines! I should amend and slightly backtrack my statement, as your first bike shown has forged drops!
I was coming from my current experience working and building up my Panasonic sport 1000 - the darn thing has stamped drops, and plain looking lugging. I discovered my local co-op, and found that if I had just spent a tad more I would've been able to get a bike with forged drops, an integrated derailleur hanger, and some better braze ons.
Speaking of co-op, @
RichardHaas this would be a good place to checkout if you have one locally. At our co-op there's a ton of bikes in the "in-bay" that have yet to be processed. I was told for $50 you can just buy one. That's not a bad deal since I saw a couple really nice machines in the queue, that once worked over by the volunteers then sells for over $200 at the co-op.
Going by car analogies - my LeMond is the Mercedes, @
Happy Feet has the VW beetle, and the Panasonic would be a Hyundai accent