My surgeon cleared me to start learning to ride again, but I'm not allowed off-road until next July. My original plan was to buy a road bike and stick with that for now, and get a new mountain bike next summer.

However...I tried to ride my cutesy little vintage 10-speed (cruiser bars, skinny tires, fat squishy seat) around the neighborhood the other day and it sucked. I guess sitting more upright is more jarring, and skinny tires aren't as squishy as I'm used to - all of the itty-bitty road cracks were killing me. And my neighborhood is hillier than I thought!

So I'm considering this instead: Pull out the cursed mountain bike, check to make sure it survived the wreck ok. Put on slicks and platform pedals. Maybe a shorter stem, since the reach was a little too long before. Use it to just ride around the neighborhood.

Does that sound reasonable? That thing is a heavy slow POS. I'm not sure how comfy it'll be since it's just a hardtail, too. But I can't think of anything that would be better in the short-term, especially since (theoretically) winter is coming.

Advice? Thanks!