Advide for bike purchase

[nfrog]

Hi everyone! I am looking to buy a second hand bike for commuting in Sydney eastern suburbs to the city, soo some steep hills involved.
I have been in flat Melbourne so I'm not sure what kind of bike to buy. I am 167cm and not the strongest haha.
I have been looking at old Avanti Giro's and Giant OCR 1. Looking around the ~$300 range if possible but don't know if need something more expensive.
Looking for something that'll get me up, I'm not worried about being super speedy. Just something to make commutes easier!
So I guess something on the lighter side with good gears?
Thanks for the help!

[AUbicycles]

For commuting you generally have a choice of a classic dutch style bike, these give you a cruisey pace but traditionally have limited gears so for hilly areas can struggle.

The next style are the city bikes / urban bike which are also known as hybrids and are usually little chunky like mountain bikes, have wider tyres but usually not the deep knobbly tyres, more of a smaller tread. There are versions with lower top tubes so it is still easier to ‘step over’ for women and with these you typically get the latrge gear range. In fact, I would be concentrating on the gears and looking for gears on the front (two chain rings with a front derailleur) and generous gear at the back, maybe 9-speed giving you a total of 18 gears. As a rule, this should give you the range.

For second hand, factor in maintenance and getting the gears tuned and maybe some replacements (eg tyres if needed).

[nfrog]

Thank you!