What you are saying about yourself is like my experience...
***Summary:***
-My suggestion: Hard Trail with 29’’ wheels.
-Ensure you can lock the suspension with ease.
Not mandatory but air suspension makes a difference rather than a coil suspension.
-Get a bike you enjoy. You can think: “Great. Tomorrow is Monday again I’m going to use my bike to go to work”.
Remember most of people thinks: “Tomorrow is Monday… ohh god… going to work again.”
***Further details:***
I'm used to an old MTB to commute.
My bike: giant "boulder alu lite" - Red+Metal Gray Search the google images:
I'm for years looking forward to buy a new bike but I find this bike quite good... that I decide to do postpone the purchase over and over.
My bike is a 20years old rigid bike. Great seated position - fits like a glove. Wheels 26’'. fork aluxx 6061 light 21.5' frame. Stand-over height is 800mm and I've 810mm of leg Height and 1.80m tall.
I do around 8Km+8km a day where 1.5km is a trail. I can say that there's a quite tiring 1Km road going up hill( one of lisbons' 7 hills...).
I'm about to buy a rockhopper expert. Reasons:
-Hard tail ... no need in my opinion for FS.
-Front suspension is cool. I’m saying this based on other MTB that I've tried (quite cheap but with front suspension). It makes a difference in control specially in trails and even in some roads - "parallelepiped roads". If you can lock suspension going up than you are good... This reason made me stop buying a Hard Tail 2 or 3 years ago.
-29Wheels... - Looks like that you go faster and easier. They look great.
-Better breaks
I don’t get both an hard tail and a Rigid bike. You can get a bike that you can use and **“ENJOY”** everyday to commute and to do MTB.
That’s the most important - Enjoy - Get a bike you enjoy.
Last edited by HortasPT; 02-15-17 at 09:34 AM.
Reason: adding bikes name.