Originally Posted by
dynaryder
First off,I'm guessing the shop showed you a Specialized Sirrus and a Kona Dew? For the type of riding you mentioned,a Dew would be perfect.
The Sirrus would suck - it can't take a wide enough tyre for offroad. The Dew comes with 37mm tyres, so it at least scrapes into being offroad capable.
It's basically a rigid MTB with road gearing and 700cc wheels. As long as you stick to trail work it should do fine,and it will be much better on the street than a actual MTB.
Wrong. Certainly compared to a hardtail rigid fork MTB. Why do you believe otherwise? Otoh, the price on the Dew is good.