Love my Stache on the New England trails.
Low tire pressure for the roots and short chain stays for the tight and twisty trails. Definitely recommend.
I’m assuming when you say NE winter, that snow’s going to be involved. I’d go with either a fat bike or at least a plus bike. At our shop we generally recommend a minimum of a 2.8in tire for riding in snow.
Cannondale is blowing out last years Cujo 1 at a fantastic price right now. Comes with full Deore XT, Rockshox Recon fork and a dropper post. Also, the wheels are relatively decent. Considering how hard the winter can be on bikes, I consider this a “high end winter bike.” I wouldn’t want winter weather/salt tearing up anything nicer than this.
I rode mine for 18 months before I every put more than 12psi in the tires. Rode like a Lincoln. Up and over almost anything, but I would chicken out way before I ran out of cornering grip though!
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Blockquote I got an email today about the new Salsa Timberjack. I think a 27.5"+ hardtail with a dropper would be good for fooling around on the trails without getting into the added price and maintenance of rear shock. For the price it looks good for what you seem to be talking about. If you end up not liking MTB you wouldn’t be too much into it. Or if you really like the sport you wouldn’t feel bad about upgrading in a year.
I’ve not yet looked at the Salsa as that brand is not readily available here in lil old N-Zeeland, but I do have a 2018 Norco Torrent HT1 in my stable of bikes which is an alloy 27.5+ hard tail. At the time it was very well spec’ed with a DVO diamond fork (which has great tuning ability and was the main reason I got the bike), dropper and Maxxis Minion 2.8" tyres. It came stick with Sram Level T brakes with 160 rotors front and back, although the paper specs said it was supposed to be 180/160 rotors, and an 11 speed NX drivetrain.
So I bought it as a winter bike and because the geometry met that of a good trail hard tail with a slackish head tube (I think its about 66-degrees). Knowing how aggrssively I was going to ride it upgrading the brakes was first on the list - the Level T’s are OK for mild XC, but really fade away riding “enduro” technical, steep, and rooty descents. So these were upgraded to Guide RS as a second hand purchase taking advantage of all those people buying brand new bikes and switching straight to Shimano XT brakes as the don’t like Sram (just gotta bleed 'em right) and change the rotor setup to 200mm front and 180mm rear.
The bike can also be set up as a 29er - so I also bought a set of second hand 29er wheels that I swtich the cassette out on when I want to change things around.
Now the “ride” of the bike is completely different between 27.5x2.8 and 2.9x2.4 tyres. In 27.5+ mode the bike feels and is heavy - it’s not gonna break ANY uphill KOM. The Minions are a very heavy tyre in 2.8" width and drag like a mo-fo. But do they have grip on the downs! Just for shits n giggles I rode a 50km winter XC marathon on this bike with the 27.5"+ wheels and tyres…yeah I got passed on the ups, but on all the slippery clay downhills, muddy roots, and sketchy everything else’s, I was bombing past all the XC and trail bike full-sussers on their 2.2" - 2.4" tyres.
In 29" mode, with a Maxxis Highroller 2.2 upfront and a Maxis Minion Semi-Slick 2.2 on the rear and the bike feels much lighter, accelerates faster and feels more nimble (or perhaps more responsive to my inputs). Still not KOM’ing on it as it’s still a heavyish bike at about 14kg as a 29er.
So a 27.5+ bike could offer your a bit of both worlds - bigger tyres in the snow, and switch to 29er for the summer. A hardtail could have the following benefits over a full sus:
- Easier on the wallet
- For the same price, come with better spec drivetrain
- Good chance of a dropper post
- The fork is likely to be at least upper-mid range
- The tyres are likely to be more than half decent
- You will learn how to ride the smoothest line
- It teaches you certain skills that a full suss lets you be lazy about
Some examples that spring to mind would be:
Rocky Mountain Growler (this is a 29er, but I think you could squeeze 27.5+ in it) Growler | Rocky Mountain
Norco Torrent ST (steel frame, drool) https://www.norco.com/bikes/2020/mountain/all-mountain/torrent-ht-steel/torrent-ht-s2/
Trek Roscoe (probably the best priced to be fair) https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/mountain-bikes/trail-mountain-bikes/roscoe/roscoe-8/p/28487/?colorCode=black_red
Kona Big Honzo Kona Big Honzo | The Hardtail Plus Bike
Diamonback Syncr (another company losing vowels, er vwls) https://www.diamondback.com/syncr-d42
…me thinks me needs another bike… 
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Ibis Ripley 4th gen. Get the XT version to save $.
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I remember back when XT was 2nd from top of the line.
Actually, it still is.
I have an older Scalpel and just bought a SC Fox120 for it. Waiting for the new wheel to be built but I’m hoping it breathes life into an old bike.
Get a fat bike if you’re going to ride exclusively in the snow.
Get a hardtail if you value better components for the budget.
Get a full suspension 29er if you want to fall in love with mountain biking. The extra maintenance of a FS bike doesn’t consider the benefit it provides.
There’s no skill set a hardtail can teach versus a full suspension, choose the bike based on your budget and your local terrain. NE riders love talking about how rocky it is there, but there’s buff flow trails there too. Think about where you’ll ride the most. Try to demo and rent as many as possible. Inevitably you’re going to learn what you like and don’t like based on your own experience versus what some forum folks say.
Have fun, mountain biking is the best.
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I’m a New England MTBer so I would add the following (perhaps just repeating what others have said). We have rocky rooty trails, a full suspension is going to serve you better. The recommendations for 120-130mm of travel are spot on. We don’t have a ton of crazy downhill (unless you go to on of the bike parks at ski mountains) so you don’t really need more than that and for a new MTBer a XC bike probably isn’t worth the trade off.
What I like about XT is the balance of performance, reliability and cost of parts replacement when you bang things up.
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