A little advice, please.

nja4

Hi, looking for a new bike for a 7mile/day commute. £250 budget. Been lurking in the forums for a while and finally wandered down to my LBS. The LBS advised this

http://www.adventurebikes.co.uk/mens/stratos He quoted a price of £240. I found it online for £190.

The only other option I've found is the Carrera Subway for £199, from Halfords.

So, my questions are these:
i) Could anyone please advise me if the Stratos is any good, i haven't been able to find any reviews and the LBS didnt seem overly keen to sell it to me? If it is a good bike should I source it from the shop down the road or go online? £50 is a significant amount of money to me at the minute.
ii) What should I go for the Subway or the Stratos? or am I looking in completely the wrong direction, and someone knows of a hidden gem? (and before anyone suggests it, there is no local Decathlon, so that's a bit of a turn off for me with their bikes :P )

Anyway, thanks for reading and I would really appreciate any advice you guys could offer.

unixnerd

At this price level you'd be far better getting a used bike, try ebay and gumtree. A lot of folk get bikes on the cycle to work scheme and such with good intentions and barely use them, you'll find loads on the second hand market. If you see an add post it here or ask a bike savvy friend to take a look at it.

As a example four years ago I got a 1200 quid Cannondale for 400, it was a few years old but barely used. My nephew recently bought a very nice Trek with a Tiagra groupset for 200 quid from a guy at work and he loves it.