1st century (maybe), new roadie on a budget

[north woods gal]

"When you were buying your first bike, how did you know it was the one?"

Minx, that's hard to put into perspective, since experience is such a big factor in the way we evaluate bike fit and performance. That, and the fact that the bike world has changed so much since my first road bike. For instance, when I got my first road bike, all bikes were essentially road bikes or comfort bikes. Instead of calling them road bikes, we usually just called them 10 speeds. Shows how old I am.

I can be intensely analytical when I need to be, but I'm basically the "if it doesn't feel right, forget it" type at heart. At this point, my advice is to pick the one you like as a friend, because that's what it's going to be. Odds are very good, anyway, that you will move on to other bikes in the future and with that experience, you'll be in a much better position to know what is and isn't right for you. Any of those bikes you've mentioned and others have suggested will do a nice job as a first road bike. All of them are a gazillion times better than the best road bike of the day when I got my first.