That's a good shout from Heltor Chasca recommending Surly bikes!
Oh and just another suggestion of bike perhaps the Fairlight Faran could be right for you? To me it's a great looking bike from a British company!
https://fairlightcycles.com
Admittedly it doesn't fit the bill of being available in a shop in Bristol for you to try but that's because they work on selling bikes direct to their customers apart from selling through one shop and that is Swift Cycles (
https://www.swiftcycles.co.uk ) in London if you're ever near Liverpool Street. However they're direct to customer approach helps them to keep their distributer costs down (i'm guessing a bit here) but they do look to support you fit wise if you can't get to try their bikes in person. If you've already had a bike fit before you can send them the details and they'll recommend a size to you. Or if you've not got bike fit data you can put your own size measurements into their website and it will recommend a frame size to. One of the great things that I like about Fairlight is that they offer two version of each frame size, a regular and a tall version, which is aimed with the purpose of accommodating more people's dimensions and their riding styles and I'll mention more about this below.
Regarding the bike it's a multi purpose, versatile, go anywhere bike which is built with comfort in mind.
https://fairlightcycles.com/faran
It features the mounting points for mudguards & rack plus I would say that it's designed for comfort not speed as it's not a race machine with aggressive geometry.
https://fairlightcycles.com/faran-concept-design-notes
It appears to be a well thought out bike and if you read for example about the paint finish on the bike the do give the frame treatment to try and protect it which is done to varying levels by other companies but sometimes falls short of the mark.
For me personally as mentioned above, and this is probably why my next bike will a Fairlight, one of the biggest appeals of their bikes is the fact that they provide two different sized versions of each frame offering both a regular and a tall version. Now although I've been cycling for a long time I've not had many bikes in that time and so I didn't know lots about bike fit and geometries when I bought one of my bikes. Despite the bike shop recommending the size to me I've never got on with it and discomfort problems are exacerbated the longer the ride.
I've since come to realise that for my body shape and style of riding (primarily everyday type riding with commuting, getting to shops and then occaisional longer rides including audax) I'm not personally a fan of a long stretched out riding position with a stem slammed low on a short top tube because I personally find it uncomfortable.
Fairlight have a principle called Fit Form Function but basically what the Fit part of it means is that they offer both a regular and tall version of each of their frames meaning that their bikes will provide a good fit to a greater number of people. The following video does a far better explanation of the idea than I ever could:-
View: https://vimeo.com/180866780
http://fairlightcycles.com/why-fairlight/fit-function-form
And you don't have to be an expert in order to figure out which frame size and version (regular or tall) is correct for you because all you do is select the model of bike that you want from the Fairlight website and then you can enter both your height and inside leg measurement and it will recommend which frame is best for you.
However if you look at there Instagram page depending on whether you want the frame right now it will depend on what size you want as to whether it’s available immediately. The reason being is that if you look at one of their recent posts it says that they are due to release an updated Faran frameset later this year and so they only have certain sizes left. You can see this on the recent post about the orange Faran build.
https://www.instagram.com/fairlightcycles/
The reason that I've recommended their bikes is because for me personally rather than the particular specs of a bike including the groupset, finishing kit etc., or discount percentage available the most important thing for me with a bike (which I've discovered over time) is the fit and geometry of a bike as well as the functionaility in terms of will it do what you want of it without being a hassle. For example is it easy to fit mudguards and racks to, does it take the tyre widths that I want to use etc..
http://www.cyclist.co.uk/reviews/2117/fairlight-faran-review
http://www.headsetpress.co.uk/fairlight-cycles-faran/
Depending on your intended uses this seems like a very versatile bike and for example I’ve seen a video of people doing a bike tour of the Western Isles in Scotland whilst towing surf boards on trailers using their Fairlight Faran bikes.
The short film can be seen here:-
https://www.pannier.cc/journal/beyond-the-north-wind-tour-headwindhaters-film-bikesurfing
If that doesn't show a bike being capable of anything then I don't know what does because I'd certainly not seen someone towing a surfboard on a bike before but then maybe I'm living in the wrong place.
However if the Faran does not appeal then hopefully some of the other options above or perhaps something suggested by Spa Cycles if you speak to them might appeal. Even if you don't immediately think for example it would be easy to get to Spa in Harrogate you could give them a call first to talk through what you want and see what they suggest plus what they have in stock to try. Then once you've spoken to them you could decide whether it's worth a journey there or not.
Good luck with your search!
John
