jae22p

I'm looking for something I can go on trails with, but will also be good for riding on the street every now and then. I have seen a couple sites already, but I'm really new and don't want to buy something that isn't right for me. I'm looking around the $500 mark.

acorn54

one option is to simply switch out knobby tires for trails and slicks for pavement with whatever bike you choose.
i guess your looking at some kind of hybrid if you want both uses of trails and pavement riding
there is a large selection in your price range
personally i have only had 3 bikes over the past ten years but nothing in your price range
what you can do is size up the responses you get on this thread, but also go down to your friendly lbs and talk to them, i am sure they can steer you in the right direction

wahoonc

Lots of options in your price range. You could get a gently used higher quality mountain bike and a spare set of wheels with slicks on them for that. Do you have any cycling friends you trust to help you out? Brands to look for are: Trek, Giant and Rockhopper. Mongoose, Schwinn and GT can be good if you can differentiate between the older bike shop models and the look alike cheap crappy ones. There are plenty of other bike brands out there but those are some of the major ones. Your local Craig's List is a decent place to start, also give us a general idea where you live and they may be a BF member nearby that could help you out.

Aaron

jae22p

Thanks for the responses. Yeah I was told by another person to look for a used bike because I could probably get a better bang for the buck. What I am getting here is that I would just need to get 2 sets of tires.

cachehiker

That depends on the distances to be covered and the nature of the trails. I ride lots of simple unpaved nature trails and graded dirt roads on 700x37c slicks. I ride most of the intermediate trails around here on 26x1.9" semi-slicks that also roll pretty well on the road. If you're not going out for 30-50 mile club rides or trying to ride aggressivly on technical trails, you may well be able to find a happy medium.

wahoonc

Not necessarily. I run a semi aggressive city tire on my expedition tour bike (Giant Iguana) and it does fine in both environments. It won't do very technical stuff, but for general trail riding and road it does fine. FWIW I use an older version of the Forte Gotham tire, a buddy of mine runs Continental Town & Country.

A few years back when my MTB was my main bike I kept two sets of wheels. During the week I would run slicks for a fast commute and on weekends put the set with knobbies on and hit the local mountain trails. Tire choices are much better now than they were then.

Aaron