in Bikes and Gear

My dad has put somewhere in the ballpark of 25,000 miles on his fully rigid trek 820 mountain bike (late 90s I think).  He rides it with slick tires exclusively on the road for training saving his road bike for races.  Most of his miles are standing and really cranking up hills which seems to be very hard on components.  Anyway, he finally managed to break the bars and rather than replace them and worry that the frame is going to fail soon, he finally wants to get a new bike.

He's looking for something similar - a reasonably inexpensive, heavy, bombproof mountain bike with a rigid fork.  I'm going to say preferably a heavy steel frame since in theory it should be less likely to fail due to fatigue.  I'm sure it seems like a weird request, but does anyone know where to buy something like this?  He doesn't want to buy used and would rather avoid the hassle of getting something with a suspension fork and swapping it out.  If it takes 26" wheels that would be an added bonus since his current rear wheel was recently upgraded to something really strong and could be transferred over.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas!

Surly troll is a pretty beefy 26" fully rigid option.

thanks for the feedback!  Cool idea.  The troll looks super versatile and fun to ride.  Not sure how he would feel about the horizontal drop outs - he isn't super confident getting the wheel in and out with vertical drop outs, so I'd rather not add extra complication if it can be avoided.

Cost of the complete bike is a probably too high as well.  I think something like spending $500-600 is reasonable given that weight is a non-issue here.  Could do this by buying the troll frame only and transferring over components that are in good condition from the current bike which is a plus though. 

What I've really been trying to find is a steel mountain bike that can be bought as a complete bike with v-brakes and something like alivio level components.  Starting to look like it probably doesn't exist.  My other thoughts have been:

*current trek 820 with 1x1 fork and transfer/upgrade components as needed.  Not ideal since extra work to transfer/buy parts and paying for a bunch of tourney level stuff that's likely just going to get thrown out.  I like that it has the whole Ship of Theseus thing going on though.
*nashbar cro-mo frame wih 1x1 fork.  Not really sure about durability of the frame and again need to buy/transfer parts.

Final option of course is to convince him to buy used or get a hybrid.

Still above the price range you mentioned but the 2015 Kona Big Rove looks really cool.  Maybe our resident Kona dealer will chime in with his thoughts.

http://www.konaworld.com/big_rove.cfm

nice find.  I didn't realize disc brakes, aluminum frames, and suspension forks had pretty much completely taken over the market for entry level stuff until I started this search.  Looks like the only choices are modifying/building, something like the trek 7.2 , or spending quite a bit more than $600.

Have you looked at DreamBikes at alll? (right off the beltway)
http://www.dream-bikes.org/

I'd be surprised if you couldn't find something there second-hand for $200-$300 that would fit the bill, they also carry brand new demos donated by Trek - plus the money goes to a good cause.