Originally Posted by Fenny07

Yes, aspirational as well as based in past experience. I did enjoy biking as a kid and my wife has always enjoyed physical exercise of any sort. She's a phys'ed teacher and thanks to covid has been able to integrate biking into her program at the school, which has re-kindled her enjoyment for the sport (again). Her one frustration is that the school riding caters to the lowest common denominator which means they aren't very challenging and have to stick to easy trails.

We did try and get into the sport about 9 years ago, between our second and third kids. We thought the family was pretty much done growing so we took our bikes and started hitting the more challenging stuff, including down hill lift runs and xc trail running. However, as much fun as that was, we didn't have the bikes for it. We still had a blast we just went slow. However, it was very short lived and then came kids 3 and 4 which put a damper on the plans. Now that the youngest is old enough to start going with us we're getting back into it; as a family, as a couple and on my own.

So the challenge I'm faced with in bike selection is not "IF" I'm going to be doing more riding, but exactly "WHAT" type of riding I'll be doing. Because that's not set in stone and will develop over the next few years. If I took the advice of my buddies I'd drop 6k on a full suspension system and be done with it. However, they are all either much younger or much older than I am and none of them have the young family obligations I have. This is why I'm looking for a middle of the road bike that I can do-it-all on right now. If I end up getting hooked on the rough stuff I can pick up a much more appropriate bike down the road. However, in the meantime I'm still doing easy weekly family runs but would still like to challenge myself with the longer xc runs with the wife as well as out with the buddies. IE, keep the options open until I'm in a more stable like situation.

Make sense? This is why I figured bikes like the fathom 2 and growler can kind of do it all. They won't be ideal for either situation, but they will allow me to try anything without inhibiting the experience.