Ellen,

820 miles in 3.5 months, with an average speed of 13-14 mph, on a 7 speed Townie??!! You rock, woman!

With that kind of commitment and ability, you deserve and would truly appreciate, a more performance oriented bike. You've recieved some good advice about tires from people who have more experience than I do. What I do know about is trying to find a bike I won't outgrow when my choices are limited by hand and wrist pain.

After you've completed your metric, and are looking around for a new bike, take a look at www.ransbikes.com. Their Crank Forward series, the first 5 bikes in the pictures, is designed to provide more performace while still taking pressure off the hands and wrists. As you can see from the pictures, Rans, is primarily as recumbent bike manufacturer. They've been in business a long time and have an outstanding reputation. (I ride their Velocity 2.) Like all recumbent companies, they have a tiny distribution network compared to companies like Trek and Cannondale so I don't know if there's a dealer in your area. I've ridden the Fusion and it was FUN, but I was intrigued by the bents and got one of those instead. But I'm thinking that I need to add either a Fusion or Cruz because...I don't know, they're just different. At 5'2", I'm too short for the Zenetik or the Dynamik. There's a good discussion Board for Crank Forwards over at www.bentrideronline.com. Go to Message Board>Specialty Discussions.

I'd recently read that Rans was offering a "Satisfaction Guaranteed" deal whereby you could try any Crank Forward for 30 days and recieve a 90% refund if you returned it in good condition. So I called Rans on Thursday and recieved a call back on Friday verifying that that was accurate info. Hmmm

Oh BTW, all the hype about how well they climb is aimed at the bent crowd, those of us happily riding around on 35 lb bikes. This is not some magic climbing machine. It climbs a heckuva lot better than a Townie, but it's not like standing on the pedals of a sub 20 lb road bike. Oh yeah, all these bikes use standard bike components, like you'd find on any diamond frame.

Anyway, Veronica's right; try everything at your LBS, because you never know what you'll wind up with. Have fun on your metric, Ellen and let us know how it went!