I'm looking for my next bike and can't find an existing bike that fits my wishes. My plan is to buy a complete bike and adjust parts. I need help with understanding what to look for in the bike and how to adjust things. I'm on a budget and the bike is not used for high-level sports. It will have two purposes: 1. transport around the city, and 2. going on rides with my dog. This includes gravel roads and trails. She will be both beside me and hopefully some mushing (pulling in front) in the near future. The second purpose makes things harder. I've always ridden a city bike, but we're starting to more often choose trails and the city bike just bounces about, sounds like it will break and is generally uncomfortable and wobbly to control on trails.
My personal physical situation:
- I can handle almost any bike with good proficiency (not unicycles
)
- I have MS with some weakness in one leg
- I have a back injury
- I am too tall for most bikes (186 cm with long legs and short arms)
My wishes for the bike:
- Mountain bike tires (preferably a little wider even, but absolutely not fatbike wide, I want to keep good pressure in them for city riding)
- (near to) City bike posture (due to the back injury)
- High saddle (due to super long legs and the weakness makes low saddles really heavy to ride)
- Good breaks (for the mushing)
- A "flatter" fork (so I wont go flying when doggo pulls me over some larger tree roots or something)
- Need to be able to ride it 1-handed with good control (if/when correcting/controlling dog on the side, yes she's very good and used to coming on rides, but if we pass a very interesting dog or she sees a squirrel, she may need temporary hands-on control on the leash while breaking and leaning)
- Pref only 1 gear in the front and up to 7-8 in the back (but this is a luxury wish, not a must)
It's the first three wishes that make it hard. I'm thinking of getting an entry level XL framed hard tail and changing the stem to an adjustable one. Then angle it up as much as possible and possibly turning it backwards. After searching the inet for information, I found that turning it backwards will really mess with the handling, but I'm afraid the angling alone wont be enough? Are there other/better options to get the handle bars up (by quite a bit) and a little back? How far forward can a saddle go? Or do you know of a bike that has the above features? A hybrid bike is not upright enough for me due to the height of the saddle I need and the shortness of the steerer (?).
Unfortunately, I can't build a bike from scratch with all the best parts. Like I said, I'm on an entry level budget.
Hope someone can help! Thanks in advance!