I started thinking about it because I thought going to 1x would be simpler for me. I was leaving the front chainring on the highest gear for a long time before I ever heard about cross chaining. Once I was looking at options I was thinking it might be worth getting a full set of nicer parts since I’m commuting every day but I wasn’t sure what the benefit would be. Reading comments now makes it seem like it’s not going to change much for me as everything I have still works fine. Maybe I’ll see if I can just change the chainring

This is really helpful! Thanks! From what you and everyone has said I think I’ll skip the gearing for now. If it breaks or something it’ll be a fun project to replace them later. So will big tires change the turning radius? I have 27.5 now. I’m interested in trying 29s but I do sometimes have to avoid cars and pedestrians as I don’t have many bike lanes lol

The brand is called tragen and the drivetrain is all sunrun. After some googling it seems like a knockoff of a brand called sun race.

I’m just commuting through the city mostly. I figured a mountain bike would be most beginner friendly and good for going over curbs and speed bumps and the like

Good to hear it’s worked out for you:) this is basically what I landed on after weighing all the comments. If I notice something that makes me think the frame is going to fall apart under me I’ll replace it lol but I’m not really in a place to drop a lot of money on a bike now.

Anyway I’m glad I asked because I learned a lot from this thread alone