I bought a bike (and now I want another one!) Recommendations?

[Roar]

Hi there. A while back I posted a question about buying a road bike and fit and I got some great information from this forum. (Thank you.)

I have since bought the road bike --- it fits great and I LOVE it.

In fact, I love it so much I am reluctant to commute on it to work. (We have a garage at work but I am paranoid about having something happen to it.)

So, now I am thinking about acquiring a commuter bike. Can you please throw out some recommendations?

Here's a bit about my commute:
About 5 miles on relatively flat terrain. This is a major city, with aggressive traffic and few bike lanes (the ones that are here are shared with buses and taxis). The roads have huge potholes. It also rains a lot. A lot. (Sounds great, doesn't it?)

So, I am thinking that I need a bike that is:
- Somewhat zippy that will enable me to keep up with the traffic
- I think I want drop handlebars because they are narrower in traffic and less likely to get caught on anything
- Something that can handle potholes
- Something that can take fenders
- Need panniers - I would like to use this bike to go the the grocery store
- Something relatively inexpensive as I would like to be able to lock it at the grocery store and not have it be a thief-magnet
- Something comfortable for the potholes.
- I am also small so I need a smaller bike - my current bike is about 48.5cm from middle of seattube to headset.
- Finally, my current road bike has Campy and I like it a lot, so I'd like to stick with that if possible, but it's not a deal-killer.

I am thinking I need some sort of cross / cyclocross (I still don't understand the difference) or a touring bike, but I really don't know.

Does anyone have any specific suggestions as to makes / models?

Thanks in advance.

[roguedog]

I think you're preference for Campy seems to narrow the field a lot unfortunately.

At least I don't see Campy on a lot of stock bikes outside of Bianchi. And even Bianchi only offers it on a few models. Maybe others know of some stock bikes that are women friendly that offer campy.

The other route you can go is to acquire an older frame (i'd go steel but that's my preference) and build it up with some older campy group. I suppose if you've got the $, you can get a new frame too if you don't have the patience to wait for something to come your way in your size.

The latter seems like more fun as you can customize as you like.

I guess you can get lucky on the bay or on craigslist where someone might have customized an older bike to have campy parts and such.

Good luck.

BTW, welcome to the land of somehow acquiring more bikes. :/

[Zen]

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+t...L_enUS344US344

[Biciclista]

Roar, if you're in Seattle (sure sounds like it) there are lots of urban bike shops that specialize in what you're looking for!

[Roar]

Thanks for your replies. Roguedog, it does not have to be Campy, though that would be nice.

If I bought a frame, or even went sans-campy and bought a whole bike (possibly my preference because building up seems like it could get expensive), then would I be looking for a cross bike or touring bike or something like that? For something zippy that would take panniers??? Is that what I should be focusing on?

And re welcome to the world of buying bikes, ahhhh, yesssss..... I can see how people get addicted to this. This would be bike #4.

Thank you very much for your input.

[MartianDestiny]

Salsa's new road tourer might fit the bill:
http://salsacycles.com/bikes/vaya/

Or maybe the Fargo (less zippy, more durable/beefy):
http://salsacycles.com/bikes/fargo/

Or the Casseroll (less touring type, but still commutable):
http://salsacycles.com/bikes/casseroll_double/

I'd also look into Kona's offerings as they have some small touring/cross/commuter type bikes. None are going to come stock with campy though.