Unhealthy obsession I guess.

Brakes really seem pretty important to me though, seeing as my city riding will be in central SF and I wont really be able to avoid steep hills all the time, and from what I understand steep hills magnify the value of disc brakes. It seems like traffic would also make disc brakes more usefull. It's also the reason why I'm looking for a non fixed gear or single speed. I always found hills to be much easier with more than one gear, not that I've done that much riding.

I've heard people try to say that disc brakes are only worthwhile if they are fluid disc, which I honestly cant comment on, but I'm still fairly convinced that mech disc is better than rim brakes in general, and particularly in the low end where I'm looking.

I also found a similarly specced marin that is significantly uglier at the same price.

I've still been thinking about road bikes every once in a while, and while I'm looking at bikes closer to the budget road range (the cheapest road bike I've found is the Raleigh Sport, at 520, which is cheaper than the SU 2.0) Still considering the SUB 30 though, even though it's neither a straight up road bike nor does it have disks, but I still have no idea if it will even be possible to get and I don't know if It's worth it.

Looking for a bike has been really stressful Between finding out that the only non mail order roadbike that I can almost afford is a raleigh and it doesn't particularly have any of the features I want, and finding out that the things I would like in a bike put me way way over my budget... Part of me wishes I hadn't asked anyone for advice and just bought a bike online out of ignorance.