Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Deciding on a new bike! Help?

I'm trying to decide on a new bike to replace my steel-framed monstrosity of a mountain bike. My riding covers rural gravel roads which may or may not be hard, soft, rutted or washboarded (or any combination), smooth pavement, not so smooth pavement, long slow climbs and fast descents on both gravel and pavement, the possibility of singletrack... all in one ride. Rural Montana; you get what you get. And it frosted this morning - any good tips on riding in cold weather?

Anyway, I'm torn between getting a hardtail, or going with a full suspension bike. The two local shops carry Giant and Specialized, so that's kind of what I'm limited to. If you've got a comment or opinion, I'd appreciate hearing it!

I'm going to swing over to the Specialized shop at noon today and see what they can tell me; I stopped by the other shop on Friday and got their take. But I'd like to hear from some Clydes about full suspension before I jump on it.

Well..... if you have a lot of uphills the full suspension will make you work harder then the hardtail, however the control gain on the downhill with a full suspension is great (depend on speeds carried etcc.) I opted for the full suspension years ago and have not looked back! if you have the $$ get the full suspension and buy a lockout rear shock....

just my 2 cents!

Hoo, boy. They showed me a 2007 Specialized FSRxc pro, a demo bike, at a "substantial" discount. I'll call back this afternoon and find out what "substantial" means...

Yowza.

LOL.. gotta love when they throw in an offer you can/can't afford..LOL

Well, "substantial" brought it down into the range of "affordable".

Barely. A couple of hundred more than I was hoping to get away with, but got the thumbs up from my honey. Now she claims I "owe" her. The "BIG" word was mentioned in that sentence too, now that I think of it...

I took it for a quick 5 mile ride after I got it home and made some additions to it - bar ends, gps mount, and seat bag. It's a LOT smoother over whoops and washboards. It's going to take some getting used to when I'm off the seat and pedalling hard - it bounces! I'll have to try the lockout switch on the rear shock. And I'm afraid the seat is going to fit in the "torture device" category. After 4 miles I could really feel the pressure on my perineum, and the stop at the house wasn't pretty. That's with padded shorts though, so I'll try some straight compression shorts tomorrow and see how it feels. Other than that? I've got to get me a Presta pump and some extra tubes pretty quick, and maybe some new bottle cages. Disc brakes stop fast. The tires sing. It may or may not be faster than my old bike; I covered the same course yesterday within 15 seconds of my time tonight, riding my steel bike. But, I wasn't hammering down one hill like I normally do either.

I'll post pictures tomorrow, when I have a slightly faster connection than dial-up. Teaser: It's the Faster Green Color...