Best VFM is in second hand or ex-demonstrators. Some shops selling ex-demos will class you as the first owner so the warranty starts with you.

Would the 8+ week wait rule out the Canyon?

I’d say the Canyon was best VFM of those, i’ve got a Strive and it’s a fantastic bit of kit for not a lot of money given what the equivalent mainstream brands would charge.

For a first FS bike though i’d be hard pushed to drop that much unless I was cock on sure it was right. I was happy enough taking a punt on mine given that after having 6/7 bikes before it I knew what geometry/measurements I needed, and even so it needed a bit of tweaking o get perfect.

I’d suggest going and trying the usual first bike suspects, giant trance/anthem, trek/specialized etc as you’ll get easy demos on them and then you can probably find last years model at a sizeable discount.

Edit: On the brakes – I bought mine and was going to order a set of XT’s to change them too. I never bothered, braking performance is just as good on the Avid’s, modulation & feel is better. They are noisy if they as much as look at water though. Biggest perk is the cockpit – the 1 shared mount system is fantastic with the shifter right and reverb left.

You do at least with canyon have the 30 days return policy – I didn’t really factor it in as it’s basically as new condition which means you can’t take it on the trails. You’d know if it was really wrong though after 1/2 an hour on the car park.

And ignore their sizing tool – it’s rubbish. Told me I needed small and i’ve got a large…

They’re all good quality parts, I wouldn’t let it be the decider. I’d want the Fox least personally. The Rev RCT3 is a great fork but that Canyon could push the chassis pretty damn hard, really it wants a set of Pikes on it if it’s going to be used as hard as it could be (I love my Revs but on a long travel hardtail, they were always a little out of their depth on the big bike)

The RC fork on the Radon’s a wee bit of a wildcard, I’ve not seen much good comparison between those and the Pike RCT3. Some say it’s the same damper with less adjustment, others say it’s much inferior.