Updating! Hopefully I'll have bike funds in place soon from selling my alto sax (my main instrument is tenor sax but I have a secondhand alto as a spare). The alto is vintage and should sell for enough to buy a new bike and have sufficient funds left over to pay for a year's worth of lessons on my tenor. I'm better at the tenor anyway

So once the sax is sold I'm going to try an entry level Specialized Myka, and anything else that the two shops that I have easy access to have in my price range. I think that will be Specialized, Giant, and Marin brands. My Marin will be kept for a sensible shopping/errands bike, and will eventually carry dd too, though I'm in no rush for that. A mountain bike should hopefully keep me riding off-road and up the hilly bits through the winter and will be absolutely no-compromise unadulterated me time. No rack, no panniers, no shopping, no child (until she's old enough to ride with me).

Good luck Melalvai!