5 Bikes, which one?

Now I believe most will tell u to pick the one you like best, color, fit, etc. That's what you should do, test ride and get the best fit bike. Buy one that motivates you to ride and not do the opposite.

Value wise, The thing is that at this price range they are pretty much the same with little room for product differentiation... I would go with the 1.5 personally as I think specialized frames are too curvy and paint is ugly. The 1.5 has tiagra components except crankset. they are durable and should last a while. You seem to have well defined goals for urself so I think coughing up a bit more money for something better can save u more money and trouble in the long run. If not the 1.5 frame and fork are decent enough to upgrade to full 105 later on. Anythinh higher u would be better off spending that money on a better frame.

Just my two cents

Yep, pretty much what Ranilus said. The two most important things, IMO, are for the bike to fit you properly, and for the bike to "make" you want to ride--fitting will help with the latter, but those intangibles that make us like one make over another can only be defined by you.

Since you asked, we've had good experiences with Treks--between my wife and I, we have six of them--a road, trail and hybrid each. But I'm very sure there are tons of very satisfied Specialized owners out there as well.

Our road bikes are a 2.3 and 1.5--both '10 models, and we're very pleased with them. They are our first road bikes, so we had all the same questions probably running through your mind. But, there are definitely some deals to be had out there on '09 leftovers--I did this with my trail bike. Even if your shop doesn't have an '09 model in the shop, they should be able to check Trek's nationwide inventory to see if there are any in your size elsewhere.

It sounds almost cliche, but the best thing to do is just go the shop and ride the ones you're thinking about--you're probably going to find there are some subtle differences that push you one way or the other. For us, we liked the 1.5 and 2.3 a bit better than the 1.2 primarily because of the shifters--for you it might be something else.

Good luck with your pick!