So after much research and visiting a ton of bike stores, I decided on:
https://www.statebicycle.com/product_p/contender.htm

One of the LBS owners swears by this bike. I originally went in there looking for a Pake or Soma frame to build up but after talking with him he was passionate about this bike being the best bang for your buck. I will be putting my Velocity Deep V's on it; he will be keeping the wheels and knocking 150 bucks off to keep the stock wheels. All in, I am paying $500; which for the frame and components, does not seem horrible to me. Considering I would have gotten a Dawes SST AL otherwise.

I saw the frame in the store; welds looked good. Dropouts seemed alright.

Anyway, I get it on Friday, pretty excited.

Bring on the flaming for not buying a Kilo TT

That's actually not a bad deal for 500 bucks. State seems to have coma a long way in the past year or so.

The guy at the store said he would even let me switch out the frame for the matte black after a month if I didn't like the look of the polished and he would toss a front brake with a cross lever. I really couldn't find a reason (for me) not to give it a go. Pretty amped. I will post pics when I pick it up next week!

id take the dawes sst al over this.

Didn't see pedals in the stock photos. Make sure you rock some sort of FRS/clipless setup if you plan on riding fixed.

And yes. What the **** were you thinking for not buying a Kilo?

Comes with pedals and cages; don't know specifics. I imagine they are stock track pedals :shrug:

Will be riding fixed but like the idea of having a front brake just in case.

Not a huge fan of how the Kilo looks; I must be the only person on this forum that doesn't

It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would be.
I thought state only made bikes like these:

But it look like a watermelon! Genius colorway ;p

Barney*

I thought we went over this.