Hi All,
Have been riding XC on my Klein Palomino for the last 3 years and still love it, but have recently started getting a hankering to do some more DH/Freeride type stuff and fear I will break my bike unless I get something new quite soon!

I don't want to spend much money as I might have a big crash and change my mind, so would like to get something second hand.

What should I be looking for as I know sod all about anything non-XC based!

Also, I hate riding flats – would I be insane to try DH with SPDs?

Cheers

Chris

Also, I hate riding flats – would I be insane to try DH with SPDs?

No.

How about a spesh pitch?

i had a palomino,my first posh bike,kind of went in the direction your heading, after several years trying diffrent bikes and getting more in to techy gravity stuff i finally settled on the rocky mountain slayer sxc(super cross country,geddit),6 inch travel go anywhere bike built as light as poss,i hate pushing bikes so it was critical my bike could handle doens and the ups,tbh any of the new crop of "all mountain" bikes will do you,lapirre,spesh epic,etcbut go for a slackish(more than the klein anyway!)headangle of at least 68.5 so you get the best out of downhill but still manage to climb again,
p.s i ride with crank bros mallets,i ride flat out downhill clipped in and have never had any trouble,but it's horses for courses when it comes to pedals