Hello all,

I know everyone probably hates these threads but I have come up with some good advice from this forum and would like to complete my bike search with something a bit more personal..

I am looking for a hardtail to ride trails with, I usually ride Bedgebury and am looking to get out to Surrey hills with the new ride.

I have a budget of £600 and don’t really want to go too much over that.

I pretty much had my heart set on a Merlin malt 1 but they have now been discontinued and they only have 13″ frames left 🙁

The current top options are:

Merlin Malt 2 (bit pricey at £692)
Focus Black forest 4.0 (pricey at £637)
Genesis Core 20 (Found a bargain at £550)
Genesis core 10 (£574 if the bargain above turns out to be fake)
Kona Blink 2010 (£539 – Can’t seem to find any reviews)
Specialized Hardrock pro (£600)

I’d like something a little different, so the Specialized isn’t sitting right at the top of my list, I know it’s a great bike but surely not the best?

I had a Decathlon rockrider 7.0 for the past couple of months but the seat post fell apart and a couple of other problems made me take it back for a refund. Also, call me shallow, I just couldn’t get over the B’Twin name…

Any advice would be much appreciated!

TL:DR – If you had £600 to spend on a hardtail what would you get?

Cheers!

Jake

I’d personally be looking at 2nd hand for £600

Check out Cube bikes, they turn out some great bikes for a price and usually look more expensive than they are.

prob with wanting something ‘a bit different’ from specialized is that they seem to set the bar for value, unlikely to get better spec than you would on a specialized for the money.

as above. you’ll get a better spec for the money.

2nd hand def…. something like this:
Dialled PA

dare I venture On-one and see what you can get for parts 2nd hand?

Canyon?

http://www.canyon.com/_uk/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=2050

that is nice.

http://www.canyon.com/_en/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=2051

which is nicer 😀

I would do a component comparison, the focus and cube tend to be pretty well specc’d.

The Canyons look nice but I was put off before when I realised it would be hard to test ride or at least see it in the flesh before I purchased. Also I couldn’t seem to find any reviews on them at all. Try searching Canyon Yellowstone in Google and you can guess what comes up!

That second hand Dialled looks awesome! Shame it’s a 17 inch. I usually ride 19 as I’m 5’10”. I wonder if I could get away with 17…lol.

Ok, so lets say I’m going to be going second hand, what sort of thing should I be looking for. Gets even more complicated now!

That second hand Dialled looks awesome! Shame it’s a 17 inch. I usually ride 19 as I’m 5’10”. I wonder if I could get away with 17…lol.

depends on the length of the TT and your legs IMO

The Canyons look nice but I was put off before when I realised it would be hard to test ride or at least see it in the flesh before I purchased

Nope you can’t (or so I believe) as they have a “dell” marketing technique (hense their cheapness) but you do have a 30 day refund/replace (apprently, though can’t locate this on the website).
The is a UK service centre too, to deal with your enquires