Well, that DOES make sense. Really bad roads will really bash up narrow street road rims.

The best solution, I believe is to ride a 26" X 1 3/8" wheel; YUP, the wheels used on the old 3 speeds and five speed bicycles. They were the perfect match of relatively thin tire, but wide enough to take the abuse of gravel roads or mosh-posh broken city roads.

However, like SUVs mountain bikes can be used in combination with on- and off-road rides. I don't ride a mountain bike on pavement just to ride a mountain bike on pavement. But if the route involves pavement and, more importantly, off-pavement, a mountain bike is a far better choice than a road bike. Just like an SUV is a far better choice for those kinds of situations than a sports car is.

If you see someone on pavement on a mountain bike, how can you tell that they aren't just using the pavement to link off-road rides? I do that all the time.

Finally, if you could only own one bike...and there are individuals out there who can't own multiple bikes for multiple purposes...a mountain bike makes more sense than many road bikes, just as an SUV used off-road occasionally makes more sense than some cars.

But you could get a cyclocross type bike(Masi makes a nice steel CX bike that is reasonably priced) and ride everywhere on that. It's the Subaru Legacy Outback of bicycles!

To answer the OP... yes.

A few different configurations of my Moulden XC bike from knobby tyres and a 1 by 7 to semi slick tyres and a 3 by 8 drive... the bike can handle pretty much anything and go pretty much anywhere and it is more of an ATB than an MTB.

This may have been the best choice until 26 X 1.5 and 700 X 35C tires became so readily available. Considering that most 26X1-3/8 wheels have single wall steel rims, I think their advantage is gone. Narrow rims are not the problem - narrow tires are. Wide tires protect rims - even narrow rims - from dents.

Hmm Interesting comments. I question the fat-tire / skinny rim proposition, though. I have had more than one flat due to snake-bites - you know, where you hit a pot-hole or railroad and bottom out the tire so that the rims cut the tube. That sucks.

Back in the 80's many nicer 26 inch rims were much wider than they are now and the trend has been to make them narrower and narrower which works better with V brakes than it did with cantis but it does cause issues with things like snakebites if the tyre is too wide for the rim. Some of the solutions to this has been to use tubeless tyres but a wider rim would do much to prevent this.

Recently switched a few of my bikes to a slightly wider rim without changing tyres and with wider rims that are a closer match to the tyre a little less tyre pressure is required to get the same rollout and the ride quality really has improved. Difference in rims has only been 1/4 inch in width which still does not exceed the tyre width.

On another note... used the Moulden on my commute today and was as always very pleased at the road speed, hopped a few curbs, went off road and got a little muddy, blazed through some gravel, and the frost heaves and potholes were a non issue.

Tyre technology has really improved to make wider tyres roll out much better than they ever did before and the old 650A ( 26 by 1 3/8) wheels and tyres on older bikes really worked well to combine good speed and road handling with some very nice ride qualities.

I run some Schwalbe Silento II tyres on my U.A.V. which are 1.75 rear / 1.50 front and these run at 65 psi... they are smooth and fast and just float over bad roads.

Except the person on the mtb on pavement may have an unpaved section on their commute. And the "gas" they're burning is converted into muscle or weight-loss.

They're not "clunky and cumbersome by design". They're designed for riding off-road. The riding position is a matter of personal preference. I have no problem, and with decent gloves, no numbness, going 50 or 60 miles on flat bars (though I do prefer my road bike for long road rides).

I've never been tangled in anything, I have no problem with the bike-rack at work, and I never "throw [my bike] into the back of a hatch-back".

However, I have never ridden or parked a Texas long-horn steer, so I defer to your wisdom on that.

Well if you're going to ride in a business suit, you need a town bike. And to ride v e r y s l o w l y . But not everyone is that bothered about how they look.

None of which merits being sneered at by narrow-minded people on internet forums.

Guess what? I sometimes use a spoon to cut things up, too. And I commute on a hardtail mtb because it's stable, strong, and versatile. Yeah, it's heavy and slow, but that can be overcome by simply pedalling harder.

yarb - I never hear people laughing when I am commuting on my mountain bike as the rush of the wind usually drowns out most noises.

"clunky and cumbersome by design" LOL I would have loved to be in that design room if this statement was actually true.

Every type of bike and/or how its set up has advantages and disadvantages. I do ride my dedicated mountain bike with knobby tires to get to the few trails in town.

Hey, it's a Salsa Vaya!

Trek Liquid 25 here. Dual suspension, even. All-terrain tires. I have several versions of commute to choose from. Lots of dirt single track. MUP. Roads. Combinations of all of those. And frankly, I catch road biker-commuters all the time, and the only people who ever reel me in are riding stripped-down road bikes with no luggage. That happens maybe twice a year. So don't be dissin' the MTB commuter.

The folks at Salsa must be following all the threads on mtb commuters here and think they owe us a commission.

This was built back in '91 by a local builder so there is only one like it although it was fitted with flat bars when I received it.

I commute often with my old Trek 800 with rigid frame, slicks, bottle cages, pannier rack, fenders, lights, bags and bigfoot pedals. Works fine. Was cheap. Isn't a target for thieves.

Wife and I both ride MTB's, to the store, on errands, to the doctor, out to dinner in the evening.
We have a car, a very nice, very low mile car.

As I read this post, we are both condemned to hell for using a MTB for other than dirt trails.
Even though we eat our veggies and don't kick dogs, love our mothers and pay our taxes
on time??

A good 3/4's of all the bikes I see, streets, and trails, are MTB's!

A good friend of mine that rides a pure custom CF road bike, trains
on the street on a MTB. It has slicks and all the electronics.

My best friend rides to work on his Giant Reign 1. He lives on the top of a hill and has a 1 mile ride from the bottom. He has the option of using pavement but instead chooses to go down the side of the hillside lol. No reason not to with an FS bike I guess.

THis only happens if you have insufficient pressure in the tires. And wider rims are available for 26" (mtb) wheels if you have a rim width/tire width combination you think is ideal.

I've been riding my rigid 29er to work, recently converted from SS to 1x9. I put on a higher rise stem and some skinnier tires for the road. It works well for me. I think a road bike would be more "efficient" , but I'm not in that much of a hurry, just goin' to work. Besides, on the ride home in the dark I feel, maybe safer/stabler with my wide bars and a bit slower speed....

Not yet, but that's one of my goals for this year. Hopefully around July or so. I need to get a little more fit, first.
I have a 12 year Diamondback Topanga that I'm going to use. I've already changed the knobby tires out to Forte Gothams, they're much smoother, but not slicks, and I'm in the process of adding hardware, lights, rack, etc to make things easier. I'd love to find a rigid fork for it, my rockshox don't have lock-outs, but meh. My route is 3 miles of MUP and 1 mile-ish of neighborhood side-streets.

Topangas make for nice commuter bikes. I used one for commuting much of last sumer.

Not so much commuting to work but I ride a mountain bike with tyres that are fast enough on tarmac and grippy enough off road for my purposes. They don't cope well with huge amounts of mud, but then I don't ride through huge amounts of mud often enough that it's an issue for me.

The front fork has a lockout so it doesn't have to sap power on the tarmac. On a good day I can cruise around 15-20mph on it. I'm sure I could go faster on a road bike, but that would mean buying and storing another bike. 8 miles of pavement, assuming no enormous hills, I'd reckon on doing in 30-35 minutes. At a guess I'd reckon on a road bike I might cut that to 20-25 minutes, so the question simply becomes one of whether you want the cost and storage overheads of another bike to save 20 minutes every day.

I've seen that picture before in the Commuter Bicycle Pics thread. That picture is what finally clued me into the idea I didn't need to run out and drop $750.00 on a "Commuter Bike", thus easing my despair about ever being able to Commute, as opposed to simply riding around for exercise.
I owe you some thanks. So, uhm, Thanks!

Wanna sell your Fork? (I'm having a hell of a time finding one and have pretty much given up)

I commuted on a mountain bike for a while. It was okay, I had a lot of fun jumping off curbs and such. Used Kenda SmallBlock 8s which were really fantastic on the terrain of my local mountain, and okay on the road. But ultimately I wanted to ride farther and faster and carry more stuff, so I got into road bikes.

When I did, especially when I got my current bike, I realized what a tremendous difference there was. I encourage everyone who uses a mountain bike to consider getting a nice, tough road bike and trying it out for a while.