I have a work colleaugue who has had a Cannondale F800 (Ithink) with a headshok for a number of years – ie ligtweight, 80?mm travel hard tail. He is in his 50’s and has been happily tootling around Surrey’s bridleways and roads on this bike. For some reason he took a trip to the French Alps a few weeks ago with his bike and ended up doing some fairly technical stuff. Initially he was well out his depth but has now got flat pedals and a full face helmet and has been badgering me about singletrack routes in the Surrey Hills!

NOW he wants a full suss bike – currently looking at spending £3000 on the 2012 Spesh Camber 29er and wants my advice. He freely admits he is never going to push the limits but wants in his words to use technology to overcome his limitations. I ride a Cotic Soul and a Simple and feel well out of date with what is happening on the full suss front these days. My instinct though is that he would be better served with a more trail, light all mountain bike such as the Trek Fuel Ex series – and probably 26 inch? Any other bikes I should tell him to look at? I have already advised he pops into Head for the Hills and organises a few test rides. Any other bike shops in the area thta have demo bikes?

Any help appreciated!

Ye for that type of riding I’d definately steer towards a 26″. Also I wouldn’t go too high on travel if switching from a hardtail, it feels very weird changing over. Riding here is a lot different to the helps remember, rarely the same speed and knarlyness.

With that budget I’d look at a Santa Cruz Heckler maybe..

Pedal and Spoke in Peaslake stock Santa Cruz and do demos, the Superlight is the most appropriate I would have thought, 100mm rear, 120mm up front. Although I’m not sure if that fits the whole ‘use technology to overcome my limitations’ thing, the Heckler’s more likely to do that, but will weigh about 30 pounds, so coming from the hardtail it might feel like hard work

A mate who’s almost 50 and rides very ‘safely’ recently replaced his Cannondale hardtail with a Boardman FS

He’s been really pleased with it.

Look at the Giants – Anthem X or Trance X – they pedal very well for the money and no need to mess around with the propedal to get the suspension to work properly.

Nirvana should have a Trance demo I would think.

A mate of mine has a bike shop in Knaphill, switchback bikes, might be worth a look 🙂

They do Giant and to be honest I’d be looking at an Anthem or Trance, probably Anthem.

I’d be looking at something along the lines of a Spesh Camber (expert or pro) or a Trance or maybe an Anthem.

I asked in Switchback about a Giant Anthem X frame once – they wanted to sell me an Anthem X2 with the advice to sell the unwanted parts on ebay as it would work out cheaper than the frame – which was certainly true with the price the owner quoted me for the frame which was £500 more than the RRP.

Thanks for the replies! Before I could pass any info on to him he went and bought this:

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NOT the bike I would have chosen as I am highly dubious about the reliability of the Specialized custom shocks and forks, but there you go.

I’ve come to the conclusion that its a waste of time reccomending stuff. People who ask either don’t wait for a reply or, as my mate did, buy what they fancy anyway. In this case I advised a 120mm (ish) fs for about £1300 give or take, as per his budget. He bought a Marin Quake for the same money cos it was reduced by loads. He’s now considering ‘something lighter’.

£1000 worth of saracen ariel off ebay and then go for a bigger or smaller travel frame as/if required.