I'm from cincy, so those miCHIGAN AND penn areas are pretty far away

Thanks, yea looking at some vids of downhill they definately are not seated, which makes me thank I should buy a smaller frame so as to lower the seat post and allow room for the thudbuster.

As to the drop bar, I was talking about adding mountain bike grips such as ergon grips to those specific bars.  You would just need to find a clamshell version.  Do you like the brakes in that position tho on the bar?  It seems like you'd have to contort your wrists just to break and would seem very difficult on a rocky down hill?

As to the tires, I was unaware you could different style tires in different sizes to mix and match, but it would seem that 26 would be the most versatile size.

Additionally, as long as I have a front fork I can take a beating since I'm still young so I really don't need the rear suspension as much.

Wow, nice set up....But yes I know it is hard to find a compromise for all three areas I would like.  However if I got the front suspension fork and maybe one of those seat suspension forks I was thinking it then might work and I wouldn't have to buy a full suspension bike.  Then if I wanted to go road biking I could just replace the seat suspension fork with a rigid fork.

Additionally, what handlebar's are you using, those look sick, also do know know what grips such as ergon's grips, but clamshell could be fitted to those?

Finally, do you think 29 inch bike tires would be the best for all three?  I just didn't know if 29 inch tires were used for downhill or not, and whether they made a 29 inch hybrid bike tire for the rear?

Hello,

I'm looking for the bike frame that can meet all my needs listed below if you know of any frame that has this potential I would love to hear it:

Can be used for bikepacking, general mountainbiking, road biking with people with 15-18 pound road bikes, be able to handle downhill biking on ski slopes during the summer time.

I'm definitely leaning toward a hardtail bike frame using aluminum.  Hopefully with a large triangle to fit a lot of gear into.  I would love to just be able to use a hybrid mountain/road tire in the back and swap out the front tire with either a road or mountain bike tire as needed.  But would this be possible because of the different size tires or that fact that I would use the hybrid tire for downhill biking?  I just want to swap out the tires super quick if something just comes up and don't want to worry about taking time to change the back tire.  Unless it really isn't that hard to do?

Additionally I was thinking of using internal chain systems such as SHRAM's hammer and that other one that goes into the back tire and starts with an R.  Do you think these would hold up for the various uses?

Thanks for any helpful insight.

Well additionally I'm from Ohio, is there any places in Indiana, Kentucky, Penn, or Michigan were I could do this?  I know a lot of people on here are probably from out west where there are a ton of places, but I feel like in the midwest it seems more limited.  I'd just like to bikepack for like 2-3 days at a time.

Thanks

Also, if anyone has any suggestions as to some awesome places that would be SAWWEEEETT

Is it wrong/legal to go bikepacking on a majority of backpacking trails,  I love backpacking and love to bike and would love to combine the two even if that means carrying my bike straight up a mountain for a mile as long as I could go farther and faster while bikepacking.