Best friend ripped a BEAUTIFUL Soma Smoothie custom built bike off the top of his Golf as he pulled into his garage. He was literally sick to his stomach over it. Ended up not hurting the bike beyond bending he handle bars (surprised the carbon fork survived), but it shattered BOTH rear windows and bent the sheet metal up around the rack mounts pretty good. Ended up being a shade under $5k in damage to the bike/car/house combo, and we only moving at 5-6mph or so.
I've done VERY little mountain biking. Same friend that crashed the Soma had an old StumpJumper he kept around so he lend to friends to ride. It was a great hardtail and I spent a few summers riding that before he moved away and took it with him. I also demo'd a Lightspeed Sewanee a few years back, and the full suspension and Titanium frame just rode wonderfully. I remember feeling like a rock star on that bike despite my relative lack of talent. I would LOVE, and I mean absolutely LOVE to build a
Moots Baxter 29. It really looks like the "do it all" bike that I really want. At $3,500 for just a frameset it's outside my budget.
I went looking at Cannondale for a mountain bike since I've been on one since the late '90's. Started with an R400, moved up to an R1000, then finally on to my CAAD9 you see above. I've spent more miles than I care to admit in the saddle of that bike, including two long distance (700mi, and 1,200mi) tours. The Habit looked like a decent FS bike that had enough travel to cover me on most of the cross country type trails I would ride. I've lost my riding buddy (moved to CA), so I'll be riding by myself, or with the 9yr old next summer, so the trail difficulty won't be super high, and the speed will never be aggressive either.
I've considered a hitch rack a few times. I really like that they come in enough sizes to cover ALL the bikes, and the idea of moving it between my truck and my wifes Rogue is nice. I always felt they were "sketchy" compared to roof racks, and I don't like that they block the taillights most times. Also, won't let me take the boat, bikes, and tent all at the same time, which honestly might not be that often. Have to see how things progress as the toddler becomes more and more independant. I haven't completely ruled those out, but they're not super high on my list.