Terry Women's Cycling

I'm considering replacing my current commuting bike with an Isis Sport, and I'd like some opinions about how it would work for my commute. My commute is about 15-16 miles, mostly on pavement, but with a couple of miles of dirt road. The dirt road is pretty well hard-packed most of the time, and when I have to I can take pavement the entire way. Both the pavement and the dirt road have steep hills. My current bike is a hybrid and is heavy and the gearing is really too high for those steep hills, especially with my bike loaded up as much as it is. I like the Isis Sport because of the lower gears and the light weight (I also liked the Valkyrie Tour for the same reasons). The part I'm mostly wondering about is how the Sport will do on that steep dirt hill. Just from a picture, it looks like the tires that come on the Sport is pretty much just for paved roads only. Is that the case? If it is, would I be able to get different tires for it that would help, and do you have a suggestion? Or is the Isis Sport just not meant for steep dirt hills at all? Thanks for any input.

As long as you can get traction, Isis Sport is fine. But for a mix of dirt roads and paved roads, Valkyrie Tour is the way to go. She can accommodate many tire widths. Tires are the name of the game when it comes to efficient riding. Valkyrie Tour has very low gearing -- lower than Isis Sport.