At the moment its an aluminium mtb, which was fairly cheap.
When I can get my hands on a steel tourer that I can afford the mtb will become the around town, shopping, and canal towpath bike - everything else will be on the steel steed.
I will NEVER buy an aluminium framed bike again UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
I'd never ridden aluminium before this bike. It felt OK on the smooth tarmac near the bike shop! Since then I've tried a couple more Al framed bikes, including a hired one over some distance. All give a stiff, hard, uncomfortable ride, made worse by any suspension. I have nothing good to say about aluminium. My conclusion - Al is the least appropriate material yet tried for making a bike frame. There is nothing to recommend it. Before anyone says weight just remember that the important parameter is mass per unit tensile strength, on which basis steel is MUCH lighter (or would be if aluminium bikes were built to anything over half the strength of steel ones!)