>>1674936>snow and road salt ruin everything, or there's massive corruption and the streets are just made really shittyNew Jersey? You want a 700c/29er gravel bike with 52mm/2" slick tires or a fully rigid MTB with the widest slicks you can buy. Schwalbe big apples are a good safe option. 631/531 steel are good ideas. Heavy steel will suck on hills. Aluminum gets stressed and will eventually break on you in those conditions. CF is way too expensive, degrades in sunlight, can be fatally damaged without visible indication in a crash and because of that last one, lacks resale value.
>>1674959If his location is how I think it is then 32s with a flexible steel fork are the absolute minimum to not feel like shit. 25 sucks ass and 28 will be not much better, a CF fork has way too little flex even the "compliant" ones for what he described.
What he described is essentially a hard, uneven surface where to avoid the potholes you have to either go onto the uneven sidewalk, take a completely different route, or go headfirst into counter-directional traffic. The best way to deal with this is big supple tires.
