I have had the Montague CX for almost 3 years as my only bike with fairly heavy use. It has been an excellent bike. I use it for all my types of riding. I also have a small Dahon Boardwalk I keep in my trunk I got about 6 months ago. And I just bought a racing type bike a few weeks ago, but that's only for when I know I'm staying on a paved surface. So my Montague is what I like to call my "All-Around Assault Vehicle". We have several good mountain bike trails around here and the CX does good on them. Of course it does just fine on roads/trails too. The portability is also nice, mine has been all over NYC and Chicago with me. It feels rock solid and I haven't really had many problems with it. The only trouble I have had is getting sticks jammed in the derailer and destroying it once, but that's not the companies fault. It doesn't have shocks or disc brakes, but I've never had them on any bikes, so I can't really comment on that. My Dad actually has the exact same bike bought at the same time and does similar riding, and he loves it too. The Paratrooper is only 3 lbs lighter so it's not much different there. The other thing I would recommend is getting tire liners if you ride through a lot of crap (trails and streets). I just got mine tuned up (first time) and got slick wheels and a higher gear on the back. It feels better than new now, and the slicker tires are nice, and they do just fine off-road. Hope I didn't come off like a salesman or nothing, but I (we) have had great luck with the CX though. Any other questions about it, feel free to ask.