A guy at work is wanting an mtb he can ride 15 miles to work, and then occasionally do some off-roading although I’m not sure how offroad this will be. He’s planning on getting it through cycle to work (hellfrauds or evans) so a custom on-one isn’t really an option I don’t think.
His plan at the moment is to get slicks for the commute and change to knobblies every so often. Also getting a suspension seatpost for his bad back. he wants lockout forks for the commute too.

This all sounds fine but with slicks he’s worried about spinning out of the standard mtb gears. could get larger chainring but that’d mean longer chain and problems in granny gear? so 29″ wheels to help with on road stuff and he’s 6’0″ so won’t feel too bad off road.

what 19″ framed 29″ wheeled mtb’s with lock out forks, are there out there?

or are there other options. was thinking of recommending 2 bikes but we’ll stick to the one for now.