Originally Posted by
giskard
As I said, I'm looking for a (mostly) roadbike that I can confidently use for commuting all year round with the odd bit of off-road riding on bridle and canal paths, but am wondering if a tough road bike will handle that? Maybe a CX bike is overkill?
Nah, a 'cross bike isn't overkill. All you need is something that'll take tires as fat as
you want to ride on the surfaces on which you want to travel.
I think we're overthinking this too much. If you had just one shop and they had only a couple brands of bikes, we'd have narrowed it down to just one or two models already.
(personally, I had more fun on a local canal path with my full suspension MTB than I did when I tried using a hybrid; humming along at 18-20 mph floating over dried ruts was a real kick
)