If you are not going to be doing fast downhill (dH) riding with lots of technical stuff then all you need is a completely rigid bike, that means nor front or rear suspension. Probably the best bike would be a fat tire bike with no suspension parts, the tires will absorb most of the shock, the fat tire bike can even take you over stuff that a mountain can't like very loose sand, snow, mud etc, all the while leaving a much smaller footprint damage on the ground. A front suspension fork are basically all junk on any bike worth less than $900, suspension forks take more watts to propel the bike forward due to the suspension absorbing those watts, suspension forks weigh a lot, suspension forks can cost a bundle to replace, there is more to go wrong with a suspension fork, and like I said earlier the vast majority of people don't need them. All suspension forks are is macho bait for young males!
Depending on how much you want to spend the Mongoose Dolomite Fat tire bike is the best of the cheap ones, they're about $280 but you do get what you pay for which means weight and lower end components of course. The next step up would cost about $750 and that would be the Raleigh Bikes Pardner Fat bike, this bike is lighter with better components, but it's still a 45 pound bike. From there you move into the $1300 range for a bike and its called the Diamondback El Oso Grande Fat mountain Bike. Then finally if you want a high end bike the Surly Pugsley which sells for around $1750.
Of course there are other choices out there, that's just the ones I would recommend, so other posters will mention others.
