The fiancée has decided she wants to get a bike. She doesn’t want to spend too much (but has bought two jerseys and a jacket in the sales before she bought a bike).

She’s tried the Rockrider 520 women’s (£340) which was OK, and also the Carerra Subway (£250) which she is leaning towards. She’ll do local zero-gnarr bridleways, towpaths and may do a bit on the road. The Subway seems OK for this. I’d rather get her something with hydraulic brakes (or at least separate lever/shifters so I can add a set of hydro brakes I have in the garage) as I’ve never fettled cable discs, but otherwise the subway seems OK.

I have a feeling a full knobbly tyres MTB would put her off, at least to start with. Should I be looking at anything else?

Trott mountain bike, 1×11 and Raidon fork for £430 at Halfords.

Pinnacle Kauri if she is on the petite side. 26″ wheeled rigid “kids MTB” but passable hybrid. 1×9, hydraulic brakes, surprisingly light, rolls well on semi slick type tyres.

MrsMC didn’t want a new bike till she tried one. Ticked all her boxes. Lots of scope to find some lightweight second hand wheels, bars and seatpost to bring the weight right down as well.

£380 at Evans btw

She’s 5′ 5.5″ so that’s probably too small.

There’s always the Voodoo Marasa, but at £360 at the moment (has been £300 recently before any British Cycling discount or cashback), the spec has nothing on the Trott mountain (the Trott hybrid is decent too, but not much cheaper and spec not as good).

Got my wife a Calibre Two two. £399 for rockshox, shimano hydraulic brakes and deore derailleur. Bit heavy but I guess what won’t be at this price?

Two Two

Edit: 26er too so good for anyone short.

That Trott for £430 seems amazing with air forks and 11spd NX. The Trott hybrid is only 30 quid cheaper with Acera 8 speed and rigid forks. With BC or D of E (print the voucher from the D of E shopping page) 10% off and quidco I doubt you’d go far wrong.

This is maybe a bit of an outlier, but I bought my (5′ 5″) partner a Genesis Borough a couple of months ago for exactly the kinda riding you describe, with added long rambling days out in the countryside. If you hunt around, they were discounted down to about £500.00 in some places.

The main selection criteria for her was getting the best fit, after struggling with a too stretched-out, racy Kona XC bike for a while, and this one turned out to be perfect.

Usefully, it’s all normal sized tubes, so upgrades are easy, although everything works fine as is for now. Not noticeably heavy either. It’s also F&R rack friendly (which might / might not matter).

have a feeling a full knobbly tyres MTB would put her off, at least to start with

Mine prefers knobblies (only 2.2″) as she feels more confident on them compared with tyres more suitable for the surfaces she rides, feels more stable to her.