& I’d take Sram over any shimano any day of the week.. it horse for courses.

Im not sure where Junction 11 is, you spoke of the north downs, they are virtually on my doorstep, are you near a place named Capstone Park, right on the borders of the North Downs…(?)

GlitterGary – Member

Doesn’t anyone realise? You aren’t allowed to have a Carrera on STW.

You know what that makes it then? A bonas fidey niche bike

TurnerGuy – Member

The fury looks heavier though, and it is an aluminium frame. Why so heavy at 13kg?

I think there’s some bad weights on their website tbh… The WMB review of the Fury had it at 12.6kg even with the heavy OEM speed kings, and I’d be amazed if the Wanga’s really 12.4kg- I think it’s picked up the weight from the Bokor.

Hey, just looking at the Halfords website, that 29er Bokor looks nice.

I am near Woking in Surrey – Heathrow is junction 15 I think.

I think Capstone Park is Kent way.

I’d take SLX over even SRAM X9 any day of the week.

Seconded here, strayed from the big S after fraying rear cables on old downhill bike and rollamajig’s demise took me to x9 and SRAM; Never ever again. XT is light years ahead of that junk imho of course.

Honestly I thought the SLX shifters I used were broken, turns out they’re supposed to feel like that. Weirdos.

don’t just look at the rear mech, it is a common marketing activity to upgrade the rear mech, and usually to cut corners elsewhere.

If you have the choice of XT rear mech and Deore shifters and STX mech and shifters, your better getting STX for both parts. If the choice is Deore rear mech and XT shifters i would say go for it, but i doubt it ever happens.

Trek bikes are fine, worst case you get a decent warranty and back up, same with Specialized. But neither are very flashy or cutting edge.

To be honest there are very few bad bikes around at that price, it is more a case of unsuitable for what you might want to do. Do you want to play on jumps, or start XC Racing, or a bit of everything. Look at where your going to use the bike, big climbs and heavy bikes aren’t much fun, but a strong bike can take a bit more abuse on the way back down.

Consider decent forks if only because you can get the spares when they need servicing. (seal kits)
Ignore tyres, and ignore what tyre threads, just look around at what locals use, and learn by experimenting. How you ride, what you ride and where you ride all affect the way tyres work.

Obligatory on-one suggestion if you could stretch to 850:

SLX / inbred / elixir / recon

Seems quite a good deal? (“Customise” button soon raises the price!)

the on-one is not as good a frame or forks as the wanga…

not sure about not worrying abouot the rear mech – it hangs down and collects all the crap and knocks from the trail. Plus the quality of the jockey wheeels matters…

Not Meaning to disregard the Voodoo, the bikes that I am seriously consideing are the Canyon Grand Canyon 6.0 (and Yellowstone 5.0) and the Boardman HT Team (which is on sale)
Both have pretty differing ends of the specification scale, both Canyons have rebas though one has Elixir 3 brakes and the other Juicy 3’s. The Boardman also has Rebas and Elixir R’s which i believe are better than both others. The Canyons are significantly different in the gearing and crank choices, they come with a mixture of Decore XT and SLX, whereas the Boardman is pretty much SRAM with Truvativ Cranks. Any advice or preferences? In my mind the Canyon’s purely come into consideration because they look better, though i’d like to hear some opinions. 🙂

This dilemma would have been easy 15 years ago:

Kona Cindercone

In gold.

8)

The Canyon 6.0 does look like it has a good level of kit on it and looks like it has a decent geometry for XC.

I think the Truvatix cranks are pretty basic – I had Firex SL on my Dahon folder and they were ok but not very refined chainrings.

If you can stretch to that Canyon 6.0, I think it looks absolutely spot-on value. The shipping costs a fair bit though (at least £35 plus maybe another £15 if they insist on Bikeguard).

However, As your price is creeping up, it’s worth taking a step back and thinking about how you’re going to use this bike.
Most of these bikes are fairly XC based – 100mm travel on the Canyons for example.

The 2011 Boardmans come with the 120mm travel and slightly slacker head angles than the 2010 models.

Hard to give you a definite answer though.