I have decided after feeling battered after my usual rides it is time to move to full suspension to ease the strain on my body a bit. I currently ride a Cannondale F1 with lefty and an Orange P7. Recently having had 3 surgeries on my bike I feel hardtails are doing me no favours.

I love the stiffness of the lefty, but at 18stone I am not convinced that Cannondales full suspension cross country type bikes are suitable for one so large.

I have been thinking about a Heckler with coil shock rather than an air shock, but any forks offer the same performance and stiffness of the lefty?

If not the Heckler does anyone have any suggestions for a full suspension XC type bike for an 18stoner? Budget is up to £3000.

All help appreciated.

Regards

right, well I think if you can re-use some partw on your old bike, you could afford a nicolai. 3 grand would get you a frame, fork shock, headset seatpost and pleanty more, then just use you drive train wheels and brakes from your old bike untill you can afford new stuff.

Nicolai make really strong bikes, you won't notice any flex and it won't brake. (if it does, then they fix it pretty much with no problem)

3000 on a nicolai frame? you could get a perfectly decent complete bike with change to boot for that kind of cash. then you wouldnt have to worry about upgrading later either.

with that kind of money your spoilt for choice really, have a look at the Lapierre Zesty or Santa Cruz Blur or the Ibis Mojo or the….well you get the idea.

any bike will happily take your weight, you'll just need to adjust the shock and fork.

World's your oyster with three grand. Can you go to some demo day events and try a few bikes out?

Actually 4130soul, not ever bike will take his weight. If he were to buy a 6inch trial bike with a 2 inch stroke shock, running a dhx rc4 it wouldn't take his weight because there is not a hard enough spring to get the required sag.

But hey what do I know…… You should listen to soul and buy any bike you want.

TBH with a leverage ratio of 3:1 then I would stay away from air shocks

Big guys need simple, burly bikes I've found.

I'd say a Orange 5, Moorewood Shova or a SC Heckler. Nicolais seem great too but are very expensive.

If it were me I'd go single pivot and plenty o gussets!

18 stone is around 250 psi in an air shock which is OK in an RP or Float but a DHX might be a better bet so I'd try and get an upgrade.

Frankly if my bike broke tomorrow I'd buy a five but I'm saving for a Shova.

ive just built a real sweet intense tracer that would be a good bet! or i concur with the orange 5 idea… 😆

a dhx 5.0 would take it but it may be an upgrade from stock, but with 3k to spend hardly an issue