I'm at a loss.  What do you do when you have two very different road conditions to travel through but most bikes are made for one or the other?

I talked with a couple of local bike shops and everyone looked at me with this glazed over look of huh?  Obviously no one deals with rural roads that are either ashpalt or rough gravel and you have to go through both to get anywhere.

My mountain bike is terrible on regular roads and hills.  It was made for rough terrain, perfect for the back gravel roads, but not here in town or for long distance.  I went 7 miles today and I hated it.  I even changed to a different tire and added more comfortable handles.

I looked at several bikes yesterday:

The street/racing bikes where you are bent over are uncomfortable and with the skinny tires, they wouldn't last 2 seconds in the back roads.

The comfort bikes are just that..comfort.  They aren't for the back roads and I don't want to ride through town with a bike that was made for flat roads.

The cruiser bikes are for cruising.  Think old people going through the park with no concept of time.  Not even close to what I could use but DH bought one yesterday; the Townie.  Look it up.

You have the hybrids which are supposed to do both, but I wasn't impressed. 

The commuter bikes are for going through urban areas like in downtown cities.

I give up for now.