I've asked a few questions around here the past couple of days and hope you guys and gals don't mind! Knowing that I want to ride on both roads and trails through terrain I was recommended to get a mountain bike because you can take that on the road but you can't take a bike geared towards the road on terrain.

Is this off base? I know they're generally heavier, but how do mountain bikes do on the road?

Fine. But not the most efficient. Unless you change to a "street" type tire or at least a cyclocross tread. Knobbies push a lot of wind.

Unless you plan on doing "real" mountains with technical accents and descents you should get a Trek Dual Sport.

I ride mountain bikes on the road all the time. Just loose the knobby tires and get some semi-slick tires.................

Not great. Mountain bikes are designed for single track. Knobby tires are designed to run at lower pressures and with the knobs give you better control on dirt. But they handle poorly on pavement. And the riding position is not efficient for roads. Some of the really old hardtails (without suspension) like the old Specialized Rockhoppers or Trek 8xx or 9xx can be converted to city bikes by putting slick tires on and raising the handlebars a little for a more upright riding position than those bikes were designed to have. That said, it isn't optimal. I might ride my old urbanized mountain bike 5 or maybe 10 miles, or on a trail, but anything further on the road and I go with my drop bar bike. Even my son, who loves his mountain bike for single track, rides a hybrid when he rides on the road.

The other thing is, a good mountain bike costs more than a decent hybrid so it really makes no sense to go full mountain bike, especially since you want to to ride mostly on paved roads.

How does that trek dual sport do on the road? Great looking bike!

I love mine. Great for crappy roads. Mine sees very little trail time, but I still have my "off road tires" and wouldn't hesitate to get some dirt on it.

Exactly the same as the Specialized Crosstrail.

I have an old Stumpjumper, M4 (MTB), I think but I'm not positive of the model. I bought it back in the mid 90's. I have no idea how many miles I've put on it but that's 20 years and it could pretty easily be 40,000 plus miles. If I had to guess, 98% of that has been on the road. Even when I was doing more off-road, like when I first bought it, I was still biking to the dirt, on pavement.

The thing that kind of gets missed in all of this is why you ride. I did it because I liked it and it was a good workout for a couple of hours, give or take. The thing is, going fast or slow, if you bike for about the same amount of time, with roughly the same amount of effort, you burn roughly the same amount of calories. Getting where you go faster, or slower, literally makes almost no difference in that respect. For me it was more about comfort and just making sure I was doing something. You could even argue that a heavier bike is better because it makes you work a little bit harder.

A MTB has, in my opinion, 2 advantages over a more road oriented ride: comfort, and you can bang it around more. I'll jump curbs, or cut a corner on dirt, something that I would never do on a road bike. But that's about it.

They both get you somewhere, the only difference is that one is faster while the other is more versatile.

I returned to biking in 2005 with the purchase of a Trek 3900 MTB. I road almost exclusively on streets, and eventually did solo half-centuries on it. I guess I didn't know any better. I eventually heard about slicks, and that made it a lot easier. It was an entry-level bike, but I really rode the hell out of it and enjoyed it thoroughly. There's no reason you can't ride a MTB on the street. It was comfortable, it was cheap, and I never had to worry about potholes or curb hopping. After I got into road bikes, I took the 3900 on mountain trails and enjoyed that too, although it's not really my cuppa tea.

Also, any MTB with a rigid fork would be better than a MTB with any front suspension that could not "lock."

Fine .. though at the selling price the fork was a cost choice . a better one will be half again, the cost of the Bike (or More)

FX is the Trek Series Frame designs, made around a regular style fork..

You sure can. I figure it makes me work harder which is more exercise.

Answer: yes, of course it can, just as one can ride a 'road bike' off-road.

The real question is, would a mountainbike be a sensible purchase for you, considering what you want to do with it? As I've suggested before in another of your threads, it might help to think about it this way. Assumption: you want one bike, at least for now.

1. 'Do I think I'm going to try some 'real' mountainbiking (i.e. trails/singletrack with roots/rocks/berms etc.), as well as paved and unpaved roads/non-technical trails?' If yes, then consider a mtb (hardtail), perhaps having a set of 'road' tires as well to switch to when appropriate. If no, then

2. 'Do I think I'll be riding a lot (50+%) on unpaved roads/non-technical trails, but quite a bit on-road as well?' 'Hybrid' (e.g. Crosstrail; Trek DS; Giant Roam) would work very well, as would a rigid bike with clearance for wider tires (e.g. Sirrus; Trek FX; Giant Escape with flat bars, or one of the new breed of 'gravel' bikes w/drop bars). Try both if possible on the kinds of varied surfaces you expect to ride, and choose what you like best.

3. 'Will I stick to paved roads/paths?' 'Road bike' -- flat or drop bar.

Above all, remember: whatever you choose won't be 'wrong'. They're all bikes; you pedal them, they move. Some are better at some things, some at others, but they all go from A to B under your own power.

As I understand it, this is your first 'serious' bike purchase? Use it to figure out what you like/don't like, where you will/won't ride, and how (solo, group?). If your first purchase ends up working perfectly for you, done! If it doesn't, what it will have done is let you figure out what you 'really' want in your next bike if/as you 'get into' cycling. You really can't know all this in advance -- gotta try it and see.

You can ride a MTB on the road. It's not fast. If the bike has any racing pretensions you might find the elbows-out riding posture to be tiring and want more swept handlebars

Perfectly put! I went with the 2015 Crosstrail Disc. I'm going to do a lot of riding on roads and certain trails around the area. I'll do what is able to do on trails or any kind of terrain. If after a year I'm definitely leaning more towards the road or mountains then I'll sell this and get one of those. Seems like a good plan to me. I'll just be sure to keep the bike in good condition. I'm really excited about my purchase.

I would not say a MTB with slicks is a slow bike after you get conditioned from riding. My 26LB MTB will keep up with the road bikes depending on who's riding them. Hardcore road racers or daily riders on road bikes are much faster, but noobs and those 2-3 times a year riders on road bikes get passed by me on my MTB and they don't like that

Mountain bikes are fine on the road. As others have said, road tyres will make things more efficient, and there are optimisations in riding position when going to a road bike, but a mountain bike is perfectly serviceable.

Going from the original knobbly tyres on my '09 Giant Boulder to road tyres made a big difference for me. I've ridden now about 11000km on that bike since 2012, and it has done probably close to 6000km prior to that.

Most of my time on the bike is commuting to/from work, and running errands on the weekends, pretty much all year around:

That's a graph of my average distance done on each day of the year since 2012. Blue section includes this year. Nearly all of it done on mountain bikes (the only other bike I ride is a folding one, up to the local bike shop or back from there… ~5km one-way)

You'll note there apart from some days where I might do a big run across town (~80km round trip), my daily rides are mostly ~20km. I have ridden road bikes once or twice, but I feel the mountain bike with the extra weight is just that little bit more stable. Slower for sure, but stable.

I have been commuting on a FS mountain bike for 2 years now, about 20 miles each way. So ya, it can be done. One thing to keep in mind is if your suspension doesnt lockout, then you will lose some energy going up hills, etc. But as far as cruising goes, I go about 16 mph without too much effort. If I were to go mountain bike, I would look for one with a rigid frame, or a hard tail with front lockout. Oh, and switch out those tires for semi-slicks, it really helps a ton and I can still hit some mild trails.

Cheers! That's a good bike, and a good purchase for a first 'serious' bike, given what you want to do. It should serve you well.

Agree. When I returned to cycling in a 'serious' way in '02, I began by using hardtails adapted to road riding. Did so until '10, averaging (as I still do) around 6-7000kms/year (mix of mostly road with a bit of off-road). Did my first 'century' on one -- no problem at all. Still have and use my mtb (an upgraded '05 Giant Rainier), though now mainly off-road in my summer location.

The difference in "speed" is just not all that great, and certainly not as great as many would like one to believe provided tires are optimized. If I could have only one bike, it would likely still be a decent cross-country hardtail (yes, with front suspension!).

My DS works great. The problem with a lot of Arizona roads is that they're in poor condition -- potholes, gravel, washboards, cracks, etc. It handles everything quite well. I often take it on dirt roads and packed dirt trails too. Maybe the downside is that they're not as lithe as road bikes. After a 40 mile ride, you know for sure you've been pushing heavy metal. But I put that on the plus side for good exercise. I've definitely gotten stronger. I would like to have a collection of bikes for every occasion, but because of budget this works extremely well as sort of a Swiss Army knife. And I certainly don't consider it a "compromise" as I've heard some people say.

Optimize your tires, position on the bike aero wise, and gearing, and you can come very close to the efficiency of a road bike... with any style frame.

My son has a mountain bike and I can't keep up with him when we're both on the road. But I think that's more about him than the bike.

I’ve ridden my 35-pound Trek Wahoo 29er hardtail “to and from” Jim Thorpe, PA (a 200-mile ride) and “to and from” my father’s house in the mountains near Shamokin, PA (a 250-mile ride). I enjoyed it much better than riding my lightweight Trek 2.1 road bike just half that distance.

However, I installed 29” x 2.1 Continental street tires on my 29er hardtail, as I use it exclusively for road use. I wouldn’t want to make those same two rides via knobby tires, but tires are easy enough to mount and dismount for different terrain. If I had to choose, I’d much rather own my portly 29er hardtail than my lightweight road bike.