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Walking briskly is very good for overall fitness. Uses more muscles than biking. Don't overlook fat tire bikes. Mine has 4 inch tires. Not good if you want to play lance Armstrong, but is smoother than racing tires. Good luck to you in whatever you choose.

Cycling allowed me to get a much better cardio work out with bad knees. I could not have done the same walking fast or slow.

Not bad advice at all. Unfortunately, I was broke when I started. I gave $50 for my first. It was an old Giant Rincon with neither derailleur working. I shifted by getting off and changing it to the gear I needed by hand. I put more than 500 miles on that too small for me POS before I bought my next one. I own about 12 now and do all my own wrenching.

If you know what to look for and how to evaluate what you are buying you can get that same $700 bike for about $250 or less on marketplace. The bike shop would charge me a couple hundred for cassette and cables, and chain. I can replace them myself for about $50. Just like anything else, it's time or money. I always had more time.

I recommend getting a gravel bike, either a Trek Checkpoint or a Specialized Diverge.

Get the aluminum frame model to save a lot of money over the carbon fiber models.

If you know your size, you can save a lot of money by purchasing one on Ebay.

For gravel roads and off track - a fat tire is a really good way to go.
Go with a fat ebike for fun and exercise. my current bike is a two wheel drive fat ebike and is fun in the snow and soft ground.

Any college towns around?

IME bike shops around universities can have good numbers of quality used bikes in stock. As far as buying online; cheaper sure, but seems like buying a pair of boots without trying them on first.

My daily ride/commuter is an ‘89 steel-framed touring bike, flat bar (used to have drops), 44/34/22 triple crank up front, 12–36 nine speed cassette in back, 35mm Schwalbe tires. A bike is just a collection of parts, the only thing original on mine is the frame and, oddly enough, the derailleurs.

If those are the same derailleurs you toured on, that is phenomenal mileage on those things.

The bike did hang on a garage wall for the better part of twenty-five years but in the last ten years have logged maybe 15-20,000 miles.

Friction down tube shifters avoid a lot of cable adjustment headaches.

IIRC the chainring was always a triple, but that rear derailleur came with a five speed freewheel. It just barely accommodates a 36 tooth cog, but it does, seamlessly.

This.

I constantly change hand positions to avoid numbness in my wrists, and to provide relief from shoulder pain and saddle soreness. My own bike is an old titanium framed Litespeed triathlon model for the street and bike paths here.

Went to a bike shop today and looked around. After telling the owner my plans he showed me some Trek bikes. The Marlin 5 is priced at $599.00 right now. It's got the wider tires and a suspension front fork as well as disk brakes. I think I'll go back in a week or two and take him up on his offer to let me ride a few.

You might want to take your wife along. His idea of a "ride a few" might be quite different than yours.

Those bike folks are sorta strange. Must be the shaved legs and spandex.

A note about brands. They are largely indifferent when they come from Taiwan. There are two major plants in Taiwan that produce bikes that carry most of the name brands that we all recognize. Another thing to remember. The brand is just the frame. It's the tubing and welding. Frames rarely fail. The biggest difference in brands is the parts that hang on them. Within a given price point, many of those parts are either exactly the same from brand to brand, or functionally indifferent.

All of that was to say, they are all pretty much the same at a given price point. Some brands give a little bit more bang for the buck than others. The highest dollar parts on a bike are generally the rims, the suspension fork and the brakes. If you decide to really start shopping a couple of different bikes, look most closely at those parts.

The other mechanical parts are the drive train parts. Shifters, derailleurs, chains, cranksets and bottom brackets. Of those, the crankset is the most expensive and another place you might see a meaningful difference at the same price point. In drive train parts, Shimano and SRAM dominate. Up and comer Microshift is very good and can often give you more for the same money. You have to study the levels/tiers that each company offers to be able to spot the differences.

With all of that said, I just compared the Marlin 5 to other bikes in its price range, and part for part, it's a good deal.

Had to tread that twice...but now I got it!

Thanks for taking a look at it, Paul. He did say the 5 had a better derailleur than the 4 and the 5 also has hydraulic brakes where as the 4 has cable.

Hang on to your testosterone levels. Something about sitting on a seat and peddling for hours causes a drop. Pretty soon you're hanging out with a bunch of guys, talking about shaving legs, and wearing brightly colored spandex.

Godspeed

The fork, the brakes and the entire drive train on the 5 are a step above the 4, and for just a few bucks more, very well worth it. The seat on that bike is probably going to be painful. It has a fairly aggressive geometry too. I'd recommend bar ends. Most bike shops have a "take-off" parts bin. The dealer can probably swap out the seat and the the handle bar stem (for one with a little rise) if you want them to. Many will do it free of for a very nominal charge.

What color are you looking at?

Mine are off the charts already so maybe toning it down some might not hurt

The two I liked were the black one and red one. I really like the red one. Bar ends? I already decided the seat will have to be changed. Too small and narrow for me.

Google "mountain bike bar ends" There are a lot of sizes and shapes. They will allow you an alternate hand position that you'll appreciate having. If you were going to be trail riding, your natural movement would give your wrists/hands occasional breaks. On a gravel road you won't get those shifts in pressure. If you get them, I'd bet money you spend most of your time with your hands on the bar ends rather than the bars. These are huge bar ends. They make them much smaller.

An excellent explanation by Paul B.

With regards to the saddle just be aware that “comfort saddles” generally aren’t. The saddle is just one of the components that support your weight along with the pedals and the handlebars, a common rookie mistake is to actually sit on the saddle.

Switch out the saddle if you want but don’t go full on soft. Far and away my own favorite saddles are Brooks leather saddles from England.