Originally Posted by coffeecake

Hello everyone,

I am in the market for a new commuter bike and would like to hear your thoughts. We do a round trip commute of about 14 km daily - road, paved path, and some dirt trails - as well as some grocery-getting and other errands. We're looking to do some light touring eventually, mostly day trips.

I've been looking at the Surly LHT, Fuji Touring, Rocky Mountain Sherpa 30 ('08) as well as getting the LBS to build up a custom frame (Steelwool Tweed cro-mo, made in Quebec, with at minimum Tiagra components and Mavic wheels.) One LBS has an '08 Sherpa 30 in my size on sale. The main LBS that we frequent offers free lifetime labour BUT cannot bring in Surly completes - it would have to be built. We're in Canada, so a complete LHT runs about $1600 here (ouch, I know). I think the LHT is a good deal for 1200 or so, but 1600 is stretching our budget a bit. We are going to have these bikes for at least 10 years and pound the heck out of them in the meantime.

So basically my question is - get the Sherpa 30 at a great deal from ($400 off) and upgrade as needed, or build from scratch with ideal components but pay a premium up front?