bike suggestions for a commuter who takes an occasional long road ride

Question

I'm shopping around for a new bike. I ride 4-10 miles a few times a week and an occasional ~50 mile road trip. I'm looking for recommendations on bikes similar to a SE Lager, Surly Steamroller, or Raleigh Rush Hour.

Ideally, I'd like the bike to have 3-gears, but it looks like the only way to have that is to custom build. Is this so?

I'm trying to stay within a $1200 or so budget, but this is secondary.

Answer 1

It sounds to me like you want a fairly simple bike with rear hub gears, styled similarly to a track bike... There's now "Urban"^† bikes that match up to that category... The traditional thing would be to take an old 10-speed (horizontal-dropout) or singlespeed and replace the rear wheel with a 3-speed hub. (7 or 8 are common now, too)

Here's a few I found (starting with brands my 3 favorite LBSs carry, then some stuff I've randomly run into elsewhere):

• Trek/Fisher Waubesa
• Trek Soho or Trek Soho DLX
• Less of the fixie styling, but the Trek Belleville is nice-looking and well-equipped for hauling stuff. (this is one I've considered getting)
• Globe Live 2^‡
• Globe Live 3
• Globe Daily 3
• Globe Vienna 4
• Giant Seek 0
• Cannondale Bad Boy ONbike (concept) (but custom would be cheaper)
• Cannondale Hooligan 3
• Novarra Fusion
• Raleigh Cadent I8
• Torker KB2 (only 2 speeds, not 3)
• Civia Hyland
• Civia Bryant
• Charge Tap
• Charge Mixer

† "Urban" or maybe "City" or "Street" or something that means "road" without actually saying road. Sort of a silly term that their marketing departments came up with.

‡ If you hadn't heard, Globe is a spinoff from Specialized.

Answer 2

Not sure it'll fit your needs, but I absolutely swear by my Kona Dew FS. (although I've removed the suspension fork and locked the seat post, so it's not really FS anymore...) I've put over 17,000km on it in all-weather commuting, and done a couple of 200km rides as well. Great bike, for well under $1000.