Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Sin City, Nevada
Posts: 2,885
Bikes: Catrike 700, Greenspeed GTO trike, , Linear LWB recumbent, Haluzak Horizon SWB recumbent, Balance 450 MTB, Cannondale SM800 Beast of the East
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If you like the Diamondback Trace and there is an REI store near you, it is on sale for $600 with free shipping and assembly. It weighs right around 29 pounds so that's not bad. I don't like the idea of suspension forks on entry level bikes but at least this one has a lockout so you can disable the shock for ordinary riding where it is not needed. The components are decent entry level Shimano (drive train) and SRAM (brakes). Comes in 4 sizes so be sure to know which size fits you.
The Motobecane is a little more exotic with a carbon fork. It's a long way from the days when Motobecane was a French bike company and I rode their top-of-the-line Motobecane Le Champion. Now they are made by Kinesis in either Taiwan or mainland China and only sold by Bikesdirect so you get them without assembly. If you are good at assembling and adjusting the parts on a bike, that's not a bad thing.
The third bike is also sold by REI but appears to be listed as a women's bike versus the other two which are unisex. Don't know if this makes a difference for you but the REI price is $467 on sale through 5/28. It's even lighter at 23.5 lbs average weight. Only one size frame listed at REI. That's a real downer as it assumes that all of us are of average size and that is certainly not true.