Alright so I have a somewhat unique situation and I thought this would be the best place to put it. So I am going on a church mission and I need to but a bike. I will be in denver, Colorado and the surrounding mountainous area. My delima is they recommend I get a hard tail mountain bike and Im thinking that some type of road bike will fit my needs better but I know very little about bikes especially road bikes. My bike is going to be my main form of transportation year-round. I will be riding it all day so I need something comfortable. I will be mainly on roads and sidewalks most likely. I dont really know what its like out there. It also needs to be able to have fenders as i will prob be riding in some not so good conditions and wearing nice clothes. i will also be wearing a backpack while riding. I am pretty tall but very skinny and light if that makes a differnce (besides size) it needs to be very reliable and not too expensive. I want to try and stay under $900 i think. Where direction should I be looking? Am i right to be looking at more "roady" bikes. Also if you could give me some specific models and companies to look at that would be awesome. I was just checking out some gary fisher stuff and kinda like the lane or the kaitai if I end up going the MTB route. Also someone was saying single speed would be better for reliability reasons but i think with proper maintenance and good equipment the benefits will outweigh that. disk brakes whould be cool too if they fit in the price range. I dont know how much of a difrence they make on bikes though because they are so light and I have never tried them.
sorry for making that so long. If you need more details just ask. thanks for the help