Just had my bikes stolen so assuming the insurance pay up I’ll be in the market for a new one. What are the current favourite “do it all” FS bikes? I want to go up, down and along but would prefer something on the fun side rather than the racy side. Do I have to accept my fate and get a Five? Can you get something decent for around £2000 these days?

I enjoyed hooning around on a Pitch when in Spain a couple of years ago, even though I never quite got used to the pedal strikes from the low BB. Not sure I’d want anything heavier for all day rides tho’.

I’d get a bandit if I didn’t have a five.

If you can stand a non-boutique/flash harry bike Stumpjumper FSR Evo.

Have you looked at Canyon, Boardman?

Titus El Guapo? will fit into your price range quite nicely.

Zesty is great (and i ride a five) and can usually be picked up in sales for a lot less than 2k.

Doesn’t the El Guapo have a pedal strike issue?

I remember seeing that Titus and being a bit sad I wasn’t in the market for a bike. Might be a bit heavy but good call 🙂

pedal strike issue

Isn’t the stock answer to this – learn to pedal “appropriately” 🙂

Or short cranks!

Isn’t the stock answer to this – learn to pedal “appropriately”

Why not only ever ride it around the car park at Llandegla. Hey Presto. No pedal Strike Issues 😀

Seriously… that El Guapo is such an amazing spec for the money, the odd peddle strike isn’t a problem, is it?

depends what you mean by do it all. mines a bottlerocket 😀

If it’s got to be new, you might get a 2012 Stumpy Evo Comp for that, or a Mega, Titus El Gopping? Some very good deals on the 2012 Meta AM’s as well at the moment. Discounted Zesty would be a good shout too if you can find a 2012 one.

This
http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b0s1p4347

I want something that I can ride what I call XC in the Peak District, Lakes, Wales (i.e. “natural” trails, long days out with maps etc), trail centres but also capable of taking out to bigger mountains for mostly downhill days. I wouldn’t call myself a downhiller though. What I don’t want is something that will be a slog uphill nor do I want something too light and delicate because I’m not a delicate rider.

I had a Whyte 46 which in many ways fitted the bill nicely and was very capable at climbing, but I don’t want something as tall in the BB.

I have become biologically conjoined to my Trek remedy 8 since I built it, it is capable of full-on downhill tracks AND pedalling efficiently uphill. Super machine. I have fox 36 floats on mine and think the 32’s the bike comes with stock look a bit too skimpy.

Wow that Jekyll hurt my eyes 😯

jam bo – Member
I’d get a bandit if I didn’t have a five.

Only available in 29er these days unless you go used.

Stumpy Evo might be a good bet if you can find a 2012 one for 2k, or a newish second hand Five Pro?

Go on, get yourself a Five and be done with it!!

@stilltortoise – why not ride a steel hardtail with adjustable travel forks, eg something from Cotic, Dialled etc ? You’d get a really nice one for that budget. A slight compromise wrt DH but how much of a compromise vs a medium travel FS I’m not sure. For sure you can get a decent FS for the budget but more mainstream off the shelf than built up from a frame.

jambalaya, ’tis a good question. I did have a FS and a HT (mmmBop) and the FS rarely got used, but more through (lack of) opportunity rather than desire. However the biggest downside of returning to a HT after riding FS for a few years was how poor – or perhaps more precisely how exhausting – HTs are at climbing over technical terrain. A good FS will let you sit and pedal on terrain that a hardtail will need some proper body english on. It makes a big difference over a long day.

Also, I do have an old HT frame and rigid fork that I might build up again…
[EDIT – haven’t got forks; the bar stewards stole those too]

jambalaya – Member

Only available in 29er these days unless you go used.

Bandit very much available in 26

I’d say zesty 514 because I ride one, great for a couple hours play in the woods or a 12 hr epic. Saying that if I was shopping now I’d be looking at both 26 and 29ers: bandit, horsethief, grapil, rocket, gyro, spolt for choice.

Orange ST4?

Had a think about this last night. I’ve not ridden much this year due to filling my riding quota with road riding instead, but that’s another story. When I do ride off road, it is mostly local, short loops through woods and I can’t help but feel a bike like an Orange 5 would be pointless overkill; for a few years i enjoyed my local riding immensely with a lightweight fully rigid! The problem was I’m not a careful or graceful rider, so as soon as I hit something a bit rocky I ended up with pinch punctures.

However if I do ride further afield I tend to favour rides with fast and/or technical descents. I love Lakes riding for example. Climbing is something that I want to feel is efficient rather than a slog and as per comment above I don’t rate
hard tails for technical climbing.

My last experience of trail centres left me a bit flat and i realise now that they’re not for pootling around but instead they need to be ridden fast and hard, so i want something suitable for that. My Whyte 46 felt quite difficult to get in a stable fast cornering position compared to my MmmBop, despite the Whyte being an excellent bike for what I call technical pedalling (e.g. Ullswater single track).

I realise that an alpine-capable bike that will also be enjoyable in the local woods may be a jack of all trades too far, so I may concede that for (rare) alpine trips I’ll just rent.

Any other recommendations now? 😀

I know everybody is going to recommend what they are riding but for ticking all your boxes you might want to consider a Turner 5 spot. Mine has some coil Lyriks and dropper post which puts it in at 31 Lbs but it really does not ride like a bike of that weight.

Miss out the review in this issues STW mag as it was pretty poor but go onto Bikeradar and check theirs out. It sums up the bike perfectly.

Its a bit on the expensive side but you really do get what you pay for.

I ride mine all round Scotland from proper mountain Ascents/descents to xc bimbles round the woods. Amazing bike 🙂

Nice secondhand 2011 5 in white with orange rims? I have one doing not a lot. Size 20. Hardly ridden

jambalaya – Member
jam bo – Member
I’d get a bandit if I didn’t have a five.

Only available in 29er these days unless you go used.

Not so they sell at the rate of 3:1 26 v 29, the UK market does not appear to ‘like’ 29ers as much as the US plus they look weird, so although we will still offer 29ers there will be more 26er Bandits on order.

The big question and given this is a thread about do it all bikes, is what to do with the 29er Covert, the 26 is imv the perfect do everything machine and I absolutely love mine, but I’m also head of the queue for the Carbon version which I’ve ridden briefly and is in a whole other league, so with all that why produce a 29er Covert – just saying.

Here’s what pink bike have to say about the Bandit, it also got excellent reviews by one of the UK mags who rated it in the top ten of all the bikes they reviewed this year, SIngletrack also like the Bandit (can’t say it’s a particular favourite of mine then I think you’re either a Covert or Bandit type depending on your local terrain and wether or not you’ve been Jedi’d..) The Surrey hills mob tend to prefer bandits, us closer to the Alps down here in Gods country prefer the Covert.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Transition-Bandit-26-Tested-2012.html

EDit found that STW review here

5 Spot did cross my mind but I do think it is a very ugly looking bike. Shame, because the older versions were very nice looking. Not quite sure how they’ve managed to muck it up. A friend of mine recently sold her hardly used (but a few years old) 5 Spot. With different timing I might have snapped it up.

The truth is there’s the bike I need for the kind of riding I want to be doing (and used to do before being Dad took priority), then there’s the bike I need for the kind of riding I actually end up doing. They’re very different sadly. I want a bike for riding ride Tenerife/Sierra Nevada/Alps etc but based on what I’ve done in the last couple of years I’d be better with a little lightweight XC hard tail 😕

Zesty. Mines the go to bike when I’m knackered or my arse hurts, and I just want to get round something with minimum of fuss; my Soul needs to much effort to make it go fast.

It’s perfect for the longer rides such as CyB enduro or the BikeFest’s as it mean you go for longer for less grief.

It’s also a demon descender and I’m looking forward to getting it out to the Alps next year for a Mega or something similar.

Fuel EX seems the obvious choice.

The 2012s are great, but the 2013 has 130mm instead of 120mm rear so may be even betetr for your purposes (if not everyones).

Heckler you’d get a decent build or 2k.

Crumbs! Spoilt for choice is the conclusion I’m coming to 🙂

I think someone is getting a lttle obsessive about the spec list at On-One:

Spacers :: 1 x 10mm & 2 x 5mm Headset Spacers

vital information that. 🙂

Boardman.

Do it all blur ltc not for 2k though

Don’t fancy a Boardman. Road or mountain, their range has never captured my heart. Bandit is current fave suggestion. Anyone know anywhere that has demo bikes?

@honourablegeorge an @igrf

I am a fully paid up Transition fan and Covert owner. I just thought I’d seen press that the Bandit was going 29 only, I’m glad to see that’s not the case as confirmed by yourselves and the company website.

@igrf – not sure why you think Surrey Hill’s ‘mob’ prefer Bandits over Coverts, seems pretty even to me. Nirvana (Transition dealer) had Covert’s in stock and on demo before getting the 29er Bandit.

IMO there are very few truly awful bikes on the market these days and generally most mid travel (5″ – 6″) full sus bike is going to do 90% of what you need. Pick one or two that you like the look of, try them if you can and buy the one you like most.

Now if somebody had managed to convince me of that years ago I could have saved myself a small fortune 🙂 .

18 Bikes in Derbyshire have a demo bandit. Medium

Nirvana might, they stock lapierre too, got my zesty there. Demo both on them there Surrey Hills. My bro got his bandit direct from surf sale in folkestone, they’ve got this ex demo bottlerocket for a bargain £1000 off

Excellent. 18 Bikes are not far from me and I guess they’ll have a couple of other models to try too, on the kind of terrain I mostly will use it for. Now just need to wait for insurance money and broken collarbone to heal 😆