Yesterday I posted about feeling a shimmy in the front end of my bike. It wasn't the panniers. My frame is completely busted! It's cracked all the way around where the top bar meets the post. I'm just lucky it happened so close to home!

I'm now looking for a new commuter bike, and I'm leaning toward this one:

https://www.gtbicycles.com/bikes/urba...our-putty-gray

A friend of mine works at a shop and could get it for me for a VERY sizable discount, bringing it down to $550-$600, but I pretty much have to let him know tomorrow, before he goes out of town.

Thoughts?

I'd buy it for that price, and use some of the savings to upgrade the brakes to Avid BB7s and G2 CleanSweep 160 mm rotors.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me for a bike like that at a shop. You might not have any problems with the disc brakes that are on it now, but like has been said before if you do you can upgrade. The more I think about the bike it the more I think its a great deal.

Looks like a good deal at that price. Not sure how important disc brakes are to you, but if rim brakes are okay, I wonder if the Nashbar steel touring bike would not be a better deal. For $650 you get 105 STI shifters, and FD and RD. The Peace has Microshift shifters, and low end FD and mid level RD Shimano.

I think the Peace is better looking bike - the triple triangle thing and the color are pretty sharp.

If you friend gets the bike for you at the discount, is he or the shop going to do the set up on it? If so, and things like wheel tension etc were going to be checked, I would lean toward the Peace.

Wow so Nashbar did spec out that bike with 105. That seems like a heck of a bike for the price when on sale.