Jenn, thanks for the peek at yours. Looks great!

I was able to go to one of the local cycling shops that features mainly Specialized and Trek. They had a couple cross bikes there. One had flat bars and the other had drop bars. I was able to take them both for a spin.

The Trek (FX 7.2, I think?) was roughly $700 and was an easy ride, but it just felt like the shifting components were cheap. (No offense to those of you out there with this bike, I'm just comparing the two.) It reminded me a lot of my mountain biking days back in high school, so at least I was familiar with the geometry of the bike.

The other was a Specialized Tricross...$1200. It was a lot smoother to shift through, but it took me a few moments to get used to the steering as I have never done a drop bar before. I was down in sloped position more than I was on the flat bar. Seemed like a daunting bike, but it was more of a challenge and I enjoy challenges.

Afterwards, the friend that I met up with brought his two bikes for the GAP trial. We are the same height so it worked out nicely (I just have longer legs than he does, hahah!). Did about 12 miles that day! =D Had to push through the last 2, but it was a lot of fun. I road his mountain bike, he was on his C'dale road bike. One thing I noticed about riding though is that my hands were going numb often, so I had to switch up my hand positioning a lot. Thoughts about this?