So I thank the people who encouraged me to go to a bike shop and gave me advice in general. I'm still not sure I'm going to be able to buy a bike from a shop though, because they might be out of my price range ever so much.

However, Since then I've noticed there are bikes that are exactly like I had envisioned when I started looking for an urban commuter.

I saw the Scott SUB 10, and it had everything I wanted, slightly wider road tires, disc brakes, rack mounts etc. The only problem was that it cost around $1,000 and that's WAY out of my price range. But there's also the SUB 20 and SUB 30, though the 30 foregoes the disc brakes.

With a little more research I found the Trek SU line, which is essentially the same thing. Basically an Urban MTB more or less, with a fixed fork, disc brakes, and slick tires. The SU 2.0 might be in my price range but I will definitely have to stretch my budget.

Now my questions are: Do bike shops generally move on the price? I think theres a really low chance I'll find either bike sitting in any of the 8 LBS surrounding my home. If I have to have a LBS order it I feel like that might be a bit more expensive.

Does anyone know of any other bikes in the 'budget' category that are road oriented w/ disc brakes that I'm missing in my search? (drop bars or no)