Hello all! After lurking for some time to get a flavor of these forums, I decided to take the plunge and register since I formed very positive impressions of this place.

I'm merely a recreational cyclist which finds me out on my '97 Trek 2120 for "fitness rides" from 4 - 5 hours a week at the present with plans of increasing that time as my other-than-bicycling life allows. I commute by bike occasionally, but would really like to get a bike better suited to such than my Trek. The streets where I live are an obstacle course of potholes and generally rough uneven pavement so I really get rattled on my Trek. Any suggestions for a commuter bike are certainly welcome!

When I registered, I took the liberty of naming RegularGuy as the one who referred me here. When I performed a site search for "Boston" in this forum to see who might be from this area, I found the "Best Cycling Cities" (umm, Boston ain't exactly one of them) thread. When reading through the thread, much to my surprise, I saw that Regular Guy named several towns in the area of Illinois where I was born, raised, and where I rode my old tank of a Schwinn on those flat, flat, flat macadam roads when I was a kid and teenager. So I figured this nice Midwesterner wouldn't mind being named as my reference. So thanks, RegularGuy. and my apologies if this was a tad presumptuous on my part.