Finding the correct bike for short tours and daily commutes I am looking for a new bike after my current one has started to fall apart mostly.

As a disclaimer upfront: I have very little knowledge on bikes. For my current bike I did very minor repairs myself (fasten lose screws, etc.), for everything beyond that I mostly went to a shop or asked friends.

I am looking for a new bike to replace my - as mentioned before - falling apart old one. My constraints are mostly on the budget as I am not in a position to spend more than around 300€ on the bike - which I know is a rather tight budget.

I will be using the bike for two things mainly:


Daily commutes to the train station from home. This is a short 5 minute ride that however includes going up a quite steep hill. This for me was a point that ruled out a Single-Speed. Not completely sure here though.
Short tours of up to 20km (~12.5 miles). 80% road. 20% dirt/forest road. Nothing to steep, it's mostly flat around here. I would say >95% flat. The other is bridges, etc. so rather short slopes.


With these things in mind I considered to go for a City Bike. My current one also is a city bike and I think that I don't really need suspension, etc. However I might be wrong here as I never tried suspension before.

I also considered buying a used bike - however my problem here is that I am not sure what to look for here, to see if I buy something usable, or something that will fall apart after a couple months.

So to conclude and formulate a question: For my beforementioned budget and use-cases what would be a good bike-type or specific bike to look at and where should I look for it?
Consider repairing your current bicycle if you are happy with it. Especially if the frame and/or wheels are of high quality and still in good shape. For &lt;300€ you can only get a very cheap entry level bicycle. The same money will easily get you a pair of good tires, shifters, cables, chain, saddle, pedals, stem and handlebar to repair or upgrade your current bike. Repairing your current bicycle also makes sense if you plan to leave it at the train station since an old bicycle (with a good lock) is probably much less likely to get stolen than a brand new one (even if it’s cheap).

If you really want a new bicycle, I’d personally go for something less sedate than a city bike. Go for a hybrid, trekking bike or an MTB with rigid fork (i.e. without suspension). Avoid cheap suspension forks like the plague.