Originally Posted by
eugene_b
Look at your pictures again. The tracks that you are seeing should give you a clue about what kind of bike to use. While you could do the ride on a road bike or a hybrid or even a cyclocross, I don't think you'd be satisfied with the results. Narrow tires in muddy situations like those make riding far more difficult. Adding a drop bars and a rather front forward rider position make the riding even more difficult. Mountain bikes have had most of the kinks worked out for riding in those kinds of conditions and control is much easier.
Originally Posted by
eugene_b
2). Grocery shopping. This is not a concern because roads to shops don't get any worse than what I'll have to deal with on the way to work. It would be nice to have ability to attach a grocery basket to the bike when needed but in reality I can live without that and use backpack instead.
There are mountain bikes with rack mounts like the
Jamis Durango Race or Trek 6000. They fit within your budget, can handle those kinds of trails with aplomb and have lockable forks so that riding on the road is easier. I would suggest against a grocery 'basket' for several reasons. First, they aren't covered so if you are bouncing down a trail, your groceries can fly out. Second, a 'basket' mounts the weight high and can really have an effect on the handling of the bike. And, finally, they just look dorky as hell. Panniers would solve 2 of the 3 problems...they still look dorky.
Originally Posted by
eugene_b
3). Travelling around area. I like seeing places and often I prefer remote, less crowded places meaning that I'll likely be eventually ending up on roads such as on the later photos rather than on the first one. However I won't be doing anything crazy either, i.e. I won't be riding/falling down some random mountain so I don't need one of those completely indestructible bikes.
A mountain bike, even with knobby tires, can be ridden on the road without problems. Road tires are a little faster (maybe a couple of miles per hour) but road bike tires (and even slick mountain bike tires) are much, much, much slower on trails, mostly because you are going to spend a lot of time picking yourself up off the ground when you hit the muddy trails.
Mountain bikes aren't necessarily about indestructibility but about ability to handle the terrain.
Originally Posted by
eugene_b
4). Long and remote jorneys. It would be awesome to have long jorneys using a combo of public transportation and bike. For example pack up the bike to fit it into something like greyhound bus or amtrak train, go to some big park for weekend, cover big ditances there (I am thinking of something like 100 miles per 2 days) and then get back using same bus/train again.
A mountain bike will still do all that, it just may take a little more time. In reality, you can cover much longer distances than what most people think
on a mountain bike off-road. I'm entered in a 125 km single day mountain bike ride in August and we have the Leadville 100 here in Colorado. I've also toured on a mountain bike as well as done 25, 50, 60 and even 100 mile rides on them. That's on all kinds of surfaces with knobby tires. I don't put slicks on my mountain bikes.
The other advantage of mountain bikes for the kind of thing you want to do is that it opens up more possibilities for adventure. You can easily ride a off-road ready mountain bike on roads but it's much more difficult to ride a road ready road bike on trails.
Originally Posted by
eugene_b
I do know differences between bikes but that it is theoretical knowledge only. I know that I probably need a mountain bike for those ground roads but I am not really sure if road or hybrid is completely not for my case or would it just make things slightly uncomfortable. Then again, I know about folding bikes but I don't know how well they perform on such roads and also on long rides (as well as I am not sure whether it is too hard to disasmble/assemble mountain bike for travel on bus or train). And finally I don't know if covering big distances is possible on a mountain bike at all. Theoretically, even if it goes really slow, I'd be able to cover those long distances because the day is long. However may be it takes too much effort and that goal is unrealistic, I don't know.
Please let me know what you think, and thanks for reading all this!
A mountain bike is only a little slower than a road bike in my experience. If you are judicious in choosing your routes, you can take advantage of the mountain bike's abilities and have a lot of fun doing it.
Go with the mountain bike if you are going to ride the trails you have shown in your pictures. Your life will be a lot easier.