Originally Posted by corwin1968

You are on the right track in your thinking. If you have the skill and experience to work on bikes yourself, you can pick up a good 1990's MTB on Craigslist pretty cheap and if you do the overhaul yourself and buy new street tires, you can have a great bike for a very reasonable price. The major brands you'll see are Trek & Specialized but from that era, Schwinn, Giant, Raleigh, and a few others are out there as well. Just use this board as a resource.

In the Trek line-up, the 900 series are the top bikes and the 800 series are more entry level. Any of them would work well.

In the Specialized line-up, the Stumpjumpers art at the top, followed by Rockhoppers and finally the Hard Rocks. I think the Rockhoppers are the sweet spot.

If you aren't able to do the work, it will add substantially to the cost and a new, entry level bike shop bike might be more appropriate. You would probably pay $400-500 for a new bike and maybe $300-400 for an older bike than a bike shop overhauls for you.

You might get lucky and find a good, older MTB that is in good working condition for a good price but that hasn't been my experience. Most have needed at least $50-100 worth of work from an LBS and sometimes much more (ie, complete overahaul with new cables, housing, brake pads, tubes, bearings, etc..).