I am looking for a single-speed bike to commute to school, work and the grocery store on. My car is breaking and I am starting to think I don't want another one. I could get the rush hour for about $550 or the older one way for $499.

I am new to this, i've been riding an old Centurion Dave Scott Iron man that is slightly too big for me. I want something simpler, something that fits me, something relatively light and something that I can find out whether or not I want to ride fixed-gear on.

My concerns are:

The tires, are the wider tires on the One way really that much slower or that big of a concern? I am riding on 700 x 28 tires and am comfortable with these, how much difference will the different tires make?

The ugly raleigh decals on the 07 one way, can i remove them?

The geometry. I am confused as to what exactly track geometry means as opposed to road geometry. On the iron man I am leaning pretty far forward since it is too big for me but I find it pretty comfortable other that in my wrists. Or stopping and starting when the standover height becomes an issue.

Are the components on these bikes decent? I was looking into a redline 925 but the guy at my lbs suggested these two bikes as being an upgrade (they sell both brands so I assume there was no bias). Though he did seem to be biased toward the look of the rush hour, he mentioned that Redline hadn't been in the game long enough to know what a bike should look like.

I was also wondering if there are racks available that I could attach to the rush hour since I plan to abandon my car.

Anything you could tell me would help. I am just getting into this and looked at the cheaper offerings on Bikesdirect but it seems like these would be a step up.

Thanks