Perhaps a 29er with drops? I've been thinking along the lines of an Inbred or Scandal but I keep reading they're a bit long on top tube when run with drops.
Something like this maybe?
Around a year ago I was in a similar position to you. I very nearly build my inbred up with drops, but in the end decided I would rather have something that could be ridden harder off-road, and thus went with
wide flat bars. Picture of the build below. I also have a 3*10 XT drivetrain which goes on for the road touring stuff and a 1*10 option, too.
Last week I finished JogLe on the bike, with few modifications (it was running 3*10 for it, and I added some touring tyres and some bar ends). One thing that I am grateful for now is that I didn't opt for drop-bars. The front would simply have been too low for me. However, I do have the option of more builds in the future so when building this I knew it would not be used long term as a road touring bike.
As it stands I'm even more grateful I chose the flat-bars in the end simply as my full-suss was stolen shortly after this was built… and thus I now only have one bike for on road and off (however, with luck, I'll be building two more in the near future :D)
Obviously, this is a personal thing, and you could have more stack height than I do… but the fork was 2nd hand.
