Mountain Biking - Another sizing question (or help me justify buying this bike)

Ok, so I have kind of a weird body-type where I have a pretty short inseam (~29"), but I'm still 5' 10" tall. A lot of bike frames feel weird because I have short legs. I used to have a 17.5" Jamis Dakota comp (previous to it getting stolen), and I always felt a little akward on it.

I'm going to go look at a Trek Fuel on monday that's a 15.5" frame, and I'm curious if It's just a waste of time? Or if I do end up getting it and riding it regularly, am I looking at possible injuries from using too small of a frame? The only reason I'm really excited about this particular bike is because it's a killer deal with a bunch of decent components on it. It's basically exactly what I'm looking for, aside from the frame possibly being too small. The previous owner also said that he's 5'10" and it fits him well with the gigantic seat-post he put on there.

I'll probably head to the LBS tomorrow and dick around on some smaller frames and see how they feel. I'm just curious about peoples opinions regarding smaller frames. Or if I'm like touching some mystical MTB'ing taboo I'm unaware of. Oh, and the bike is going to be used for a bit of XC and some Downhill up at the slopes during the summer. It will pretty much never see the streets as I have an old Fuji absolute fixed conversion I ride around.

I've only sustained one injury from riding too small a frame. I run with toe clips, dropped my chain and nailed my stem HARD with my knee.

In your case, it's too bad 150mm stems aren't as common as they were in the early 90s...

The Gary Fisher bikes come to mind whenever someone mentions short legs in comparison to torso and arm length. Their effective top tube lengths are generally one size up compared to their seat tube length. Basically you get a longer cockpit with a lower than normal standover height.

There are more manufactures that do this, but this is the first one off the top of my head.

Cool, I didn't know that about Gary fisher's. The used market seems to be pretty barren of them though, and I think I want to go used so I can get something in my price range with better components.

Should I be more focused on the perfect frame, or should I worry more about something that already has decent components? The bike I'm looking at has A rockshox recon 351 fork, rockshox ario 2.1 rear shock and XT deraileurs and some other goodies, which is kind of a big draw.

Oh, and I just realized that it's kind of backwards to buy a really short frame with a longer torso. Trek's especially seem to have a shorter top tube, atleast from what the geometry measurements say on their website. I'll probably still test ride the bike and see how it goes.

although I do not really like all the new cannondales both my old ones seem to fit well and have long stems although stem choices are very limited.

Yeah, I was steered away from Cannondale because of the limited upgrade options.

I'm going to go look at a rockhopper disk on monday as well that's a 17" frame, and if the trek fuel seems far too small, I may go for it.