Yet another "what bike should I get" post

[HappyTexasMom]

Hi, everyone,

I've been reading around the forums, and y'all seem like a nice group of women. This is my first post.

I've loved cycling since I did a cycling ride at summer camp when I was a kid. I think it was a 30ish mile ride. At the time that sounded like forever. I could have easily done 60 that day, I think.

Fast forward about 20 years...I live in a hot desert climate and I hate the heat, so I've avoided riding for several years. But a few weeks ago I just got the urge, so I went out on my 10 year old Sam's club mountain bike in the middle of the day and rode. I got hot and exhausted, but loved it.

I've been trying to ride every day or every other day. I'm pretty slow, averaging around 10mph. I've been riding around 6-7.5 miles. Just this morning I upped it to almost 10 miles, which was great, but I did get overheated (yes, I'm drinking...almost 2 liters in my camelpack knockoff, with an electrolyte powder added).

From the first day I'm finding that I get a lot of stress on my shoulders. I have suffered from shoulder/upper back pain for most of my life, so this didn't really surprise me. I stopped by a LBS and they said thet could give me a new riser and handlebars, but it would also require changing out the cables, to the tune of about $80. While I was there, I saw a hybrid bike, a KHS Brentwood, which looked like something I would love (and is reasonably priced; seems to be a midrange bike).

Then last night we were at Target and they had a similarly built (but cheaper) Schwinn "comfort" bike, as well as a Schwinn 7-speed cruiser. The comfort/hybrid bike feels good, but man, that cruiser was comfy. No reaching for the handlebars at all. I loved it.

I think KHS makes a 6-speed cruiser (I do NOT want a single speed). But I'm wondering if it's a mistake for me to get something like this. I don't particularly want to ride competitively, but I'd like to increase my distances and possibly start doing longer group fun/charity rides. I'd love to do a mile century someday (but will do shorter rides in between)

So my question is, would buying a (geared) cruiser be a bad idea? Am I better off with the not as comfortable (but probably "good enough") hybrid? Is one or the other better or worse for long rides? I know that a road or even mountain bike is better speed wise because of the decrease in wind resistance, but I already know I won't do longer distances if I have to ride in that position. I just don't know if a cruiser style bike is going too far the other way. Financially, I will only be able to afford one bike for quite a while, so I need to make it something that will work for me as I build strength & endurance.

ETA I will be riding on street and maybe a little bit of light gravel/dirt (along the canals).