Alright Eugene,

Here's the deal...

There's no question that given the photos in evidence and your combined terrain testimony, both your commute and grocery store errands, will both be served best by riding a HT MTB, that's fully equipped with both rack and fender mounts. You also stated that you had the desire to do some independent local trekking in isolated and remote places in your own rural neck of the woods. That venture too, would be best served by a HT MTB!

The only heart-felt quest that won't be served best with a MTB would be the long multi-modal journeys, where your bike gets conveniently packed away, but then quickly reassembled for touring. Of course, this desire would be best realized via the LHT Deluxe.

Well, I'm afraid that we're going to have to place the LHT Deluxe on the back burner, due to the fact that you'd be outta your comfort zone with drop handlebars and the resulting aggressive sitting position. Also, touring automatically requires that you take the open road where there are all kinds of traffic. Besides that, there will be extra stress placed upon your budget that will be entirely unnecessary. The LHT frameset itself, cost $1000. Then you'd have to buy all of the components. If you can't install those components independently, then you'd have to pay a bike mechanic to do the build. The way I figure it, if you like cycling (and something tells me that you will), by this time next year, you'll be able to buy that LHT Deluxe frameset, with no budgetary stress at all. All you have to do is save about eighty bucks per month and you'll be there for sure by May of 2013. Hopefully, by then you would have learned something about bicycle mechanics and you'll be able to build your LHT Deluxe all by yourself. Just remember, you will have to purchase your components separately, and they ain't cheap!

Meanwhile, you'll be in your comfort zone riding your brand new MTB, getting acclimated to riding on major thoroughfares.

Since you'll be the proud owner of a brand new mountain bike, you might as well learn right now, that MTN bikes are very attention demanding bikes. They all need a little TLC in terms of closer inspection and proper maintenance. You need to become more mechanically inclined in order to make the necessary adjustments and installations on your bike.

Ordinarily, I'd recommend a bicycle co-op. However, I don't think anything like that would be conveniently placed in your neck of the woods. I would therefore, strongly recommend that you locate a couple of old bicycles that nobody wants. Practice disassembling and reassembling both of them repeatedly, until you could practically do it in your sleep.