I want a new bike and I’ve got £2K to play with, I can stretch a little more but £2.6K is absolute max.

I ride in the Lakes and like to go up and down big mountain passes, technical singletrack with lots of nadgery and even sometimes a trail centre! I’m 186cm tall and ride with the grace of a walrus.

What bike would you buy if you were me?

Something from the YT if you can stand the wait!

YT Capra

Or, What I have (Frame, different build)
Nukeproof Mega TR

Commencal Meta AM2 650b 2014.
Within your upper limit from CRC.

Jeff

Stumpy 29er comp evo?

Was a 29 sceptic until I tried one to rule it out and it’s the dogs nuts, genuinely brilliant! Makes techy climbing much easy and fine in the nadgery stuff when you get used to it.

el guapo

Go on Tom, you know you want to…… Liteville 301

http://www.bikeactive.com/nukeproof-mega-am-comp-c2x13450672

http://www.bikeactive.com/nukeproof-mega-tr-275-pro-c2x13450545

http://www.bikeactive.com/orange-gyro-pro-c2x10522935

A Mega or the El-Guapo are a really good shout. They should both be on you list.

IMO.

Yep, Mega would fit the bill I reckon.

Double post fail.

Mega looks good
YT Wicked good too
Liteville would be nice but not sure I can stretch to one…
Commencal needs further thought on my part
I’d rather stick with my Pitch and you old Lyriks Rob than have an El Guappo

Not sure about Gyro
The SJ 29er Evo is OK but like a lot of FS29ers it looks funny

Tom
Might be able to do something on the yt if you are interested.
Richard

Co-codamol is useful for when I fall off and have to go to A&E

@trickydicky not sure I will be interested in your YT as the base level Wicked 650B has all I need and I’m not sure about the BOS suspension – the rest of it looks great.

Transition Bandit comes in 27.5 or 29″ flavours, take your pick

Mows a good time to buy, quite a lot of discounts out there on 2014 stuff.

I’ve just ordered a new bike myself. To make a short list I went on a pinkbike ‘show us your am bike’ type thread and did a bit of googling on anything I liked the look of.

Glad I did as the bike I chose wasn’t even on my radar before.

I live in windermere – in our group with have an orange 5 29er, 5 650b and 2 devinchi troys.

All ride great and happy to ride either

Give Certini a call, see what cash deal you can get on a Specialized Enduro, 26, 29 or even the Evo..

I’d buy the yt.

Or a secondhand spicy.

With that sort of cash, I’d be going YT all the way

I have geeky spreadsheet listing geometry and all important reach. My Pitch(480mm but reduced with Lyrik and offset bushes to 458mm is long and has plenty of reach and the YT is a fair bit shorter at 443mm and does not have an XL option.
The XL/L reach figures for bikes I’m pondering are:
Mega 275 – 438-465mm
Specialized Enduro 29er – 445-465mm,
Kona Process 153 – 46p-485mm,
Mondraker Foxy – 501-508mm,
Dune – 480-496mm,
Whyte G150 – 477mm
SJ Evo29er – 435-456mm,

Longer front centres seem to be where its at with Mondraker Iona and the new Canyon Strive Race all pushing things that way. I am therefore inclined towards something nearer the Pitch in reach.

These problems didn’t exist when geometry was fixed back in the rigid early 90s…

Hmmm, surprised the YT is so short – not checked the specs, but it looks nice and long/low/slack

Yes it’s why I’ve not pushed the button

I emailed Canyon about whether they would be replacing the alloy Strive with a cheaper alloy version of the new Strive CF race. In a very flat bat reply they said to sign up to the newsletter to find out about new model releases.

So I think I am waiting waiting waiting until after summer holiday…