With your budget of $1500, the best suspension free mountain bike experience I can absolutely recommend to you is the Surly Karate Monkey. Frame comes in 16", 18", 20" and 22" to accomodate the gamut of sizing needs. You can get the frame/fork anywhere from $350 to $450+ on the internet from web dealers. That leaves you over $1000 for wheelset, tires, drivetrain and all your components.

Here's the Karate Monkey frame/fork. It comes in black or campstove green:

http://www.surlybikes.com/karatemonkey.html

Here's some of the available tires for the big 700c hoops (which the Karate Monkey takes):

http://www.universalcycles.com/shopp...p?category=196

No need for suspension with the 29" tire experience as these wheels soak up most things you encounter in your typical singletrack and trail riding.

Check out this thread as you will find a lot of Karate Monkey builds to get ideas (mine included):

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=4274

Here's one within your budget:

http://forums.mtbr.com/attachment.ph...tid=3461&stc=1

Here's my Karate Monkey build - which due to the Race Face cranks, carbon bar and BB, SRAM X.0 derailleur and shifters, Easton seatpost, italian saddle, Mavic wheelset and Avid disc brakes took the project up to the $2000 price point:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.ph...33078#poststop

Of the 8 bikes I own, the Karate Monkey is absolutely the best singletrack bike I have and have ever used. Hard to argue with the frame/fork price, either.

BB