Originally Posted by
USAZorro
I concur with Hydrated. You might be better off with two separate bikes - one for groceries, and one for racing. The 950 is a good compromise bike - it does very well on the road (for a mountain bike), and is still a MTB. You can find things that are lighter (we built up a Marin for one of our Scouts, and it was lighter than a 950, and there was one kid who rode something called a Mountainsmith - IIRC, which was crazy light). However, if you want to go off-road to race, you're going to want something sturdy and with front suspension. I've ridden the C&O canal, and in some of the rougher spots, you really want suspension - and that's nothing compared to some of the terrain racers hit.
You are probably right about the racing bit... on the other hand, I rode my wife's C'dale Super V with full suspension a couple of times (off road) and it drove me nuts. Very hard time moving the thing uphill because some of the pedaling effort it seems, esp. when off the saddle, is taken away by the suspension. On the other hand, she used to do a lot of nasty trail riding with it and swears by it...
Grocery getting without a car is pretty much out of the question here, because the closest grocery store is about 5 miles away, to reach it, I need to get into a well trafficked 55mph road with no shoulders, plus I have a 1000ft climb up the holler to come home to. Just like the idea of having a winter bike that can run light errands (like take a couple of packages to the post office and such)... My commute is about 30 yards from my bedroom to my home office, or 75 miles to Newark International, so that's not really a consideration here. I could potentially use my cross bike for this (like I do now), but I have been thinking of retiring it from that kind of use and turn it into a long rider only
I am at 4 keepers for me and 4 for the family right now (plus 5 more than need to go soon). I could maybe find space for N+1 but N+2...