I have a friend who has around £1500 to spend on a mountain bike, he is quite new to biking and is riding trail centres at the moment but lives up in the lakes so i have no doubt he will end up doing more natural rides as he gets better and more hooked!

As said he has around £1500 to spend and i’m looking for suggestions before he ends up in LBS buying a bike he possibly don’t need.

I think he is looking to buy new from shop so he gets the warranty, though should there be a bargain out there i am sure he/we will have a look, am guessing he would be after a medium size frame.

Suggestions please…?

At that price and his location/wants, probably a UK ‘designed’ HT would be his best bet.

Genesis/Cotic/On-One etc

The vast majority of people I know who ride regularly in the lakes prefer riding full suss. Yes you can do it all fine on a hardtail but it’s just not as much fun IME.

I’d probably get a Giant TranceX from Paul’s Cycles, or something from one of the German direct sales companies like Canyon or YT Industries. There is something to be said for getting something from a decent local bike shop, but you don’t get anywhere near as good a deal.

Or he could buy a decent second hand hardtail for £5-600 off here, ride that for a while while he works out exactly what he wants (or if he’s happy with that).

FS for the lakes for sure Yes we could HT if we had to but why?

As grum says for price but you get erratic customer service

Something like this is what I’d be looking for at that price!
http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b4s1p3493
Leaves a few pennies for any upgrades he might fancy, like tyres or pedals, grips, bigger bars etc etc….

If he is from the lakes then he should have a look at wheelbase, great shop and they will be selling some 2012 bikes cheap to make way for new stock.

checked out the Vitus blitz on chain reaction cycles? reduced from 1800 to 1100 you wont get a better spec bike for that money.

my dad just got 1 and everything looks mint the paint work, welds etc

The vast majority of people I know who ride regularly in the lakes prefer riding full suss.

I thought it was only those who ride at Swinley who really need a FS? 😉

1 thing you must tell him is to get a 29er. They are the future.

i have no doubt he will end up doing more natural rides as he gets better and more hooked!

I’d say he’d be better off getting a hardtail, especially at his price.

The problem with starting on a full sus is you cant “get better”. You cant learn to ride properly on one, this needs to be done on a hardtail (the cheaper the better). So he’s bascially plateaued straight away with a full sus.

I thought it was only those who ride at Swinley who really need a FS?

If he was riding swinley then I’d probably say skip the hardtail and go straight to a 160mm full sus. From what I’ve imagined in my head from what Ive seen on STW, you definitely need an AM bike for Swinley.

Thanks so far to everyone who has posted with there comments…

If he is from the lakes then he should have a look at wheelbase, great shop and they will be selling some 2012 bikes cheap to make way for new stock.

Just what I was going to say. They had some good bargains this time last year and I’ve always found them really friendly and helpful.

The vast majority of people I know who ride regularly in the lakes prefer riding full suss. Yes you can do it all fine on a hardtail but it’s just not as much fun IME.

Totally agree, he can become a grumpy hardtail masochist later when there’s no joy left in MTBing for him.

😉

My “pulled it out of thin air” benchmark is £1000 budget go for a HT and £2000 go for a FS. So your mate is in the middle ! He’ll get a better HT than he will FS, either way I suggest looking for discounted 2012 bikes, should be able to find something with an original list price over £2k and given the lake district as likely riding venue them a FS will make things a little easier. A Trance or Zesty or indeed many other mid travel options available. I ride my HT much more than my FS but I’d I were going to the lakes I’d take the FS as my technical rock riding is average so I need the help.

Bones, what bike is he currently riding, what does he think of it, and what is he not happy with?

Is it purely a shiny new bike itch he needs scratching – (we all have those :-)) or does be feel he needs something extra?

Is there a particular bike/brand he likes the look of?

My standard reccommends are Canyon nerve XC, specialized Camber/stumpjumper(last year model discounted) or the Boardman FS team.

The best bike spec for the cash is the Canyon Nerve XC – have a look at the canyon website.

lot of bike for the money

To be honest I personally would go fo a longer travel hardtail if I was getting just one bike. Again I would go 29er, but I’m tall and ride larger frames. I have both a 150m full suss and a short travel 29er XC bike which compliment each other but being able to contrast the two on regular basis really shows up the strengths and relative weaknesses of each in given circumstances.

Given they are new to the sport and looking for good warranty etc I would go for big brand (spesh, trek etc.) as the big brands tend to score well on these points.

Finally, £1500 will get a really nice HT, esp in the sales that have just kicked off as opposed to a good but less special full susser

Finally, finally – someone wrote some wise words on here a while ago about the fact that generally most of us normal riders will adapt our style to any bike so to not stress too much about which bike get. Basically choose the broad category of bike you want, then buy whatever fits well, is good value and has got good enough reviews from a LBS – then enjoy!

To be honest I personally would go fo a longer travel hardtail if I was getting just one bike.

Except you’re an experienced rider. OP in question is new to biking.

Therefore a full sus will give him the confidence he wants.

OP; if you must buy new (mugs game), a boardman fs team, or a trancex from pauls (these are both better than the vitus options)

That Kona Hei Hei looks great for the money.

Continuity – I think maybe its as much the geometry which provides confidence as the full suss, so I think a slacker longer travel HT may be ok, but obviously a good full suss set up can be pushed harder or i wouldn’t have one! –warning old bloke content to follow – when I were a lad we only had rigid bikes and it never stopped us etc drones on for hours into his pint… 🙂

But I guess the thing to do is to blag a ride on a full suss in the right price range and same for an HT and use that as the basis for a decision.

Get this and spend the £200 change on helmet, shoes and hydration pack n pads ➡

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_777719_langId_-1_categoryId_165499

Or if you want the risk of problems with buying from abroad – http://www.canyon.com/_uk/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=2564

No need to look elsewhere (unless your mate’s a brand snob…)

On-One 456 with sektors for ~£900?

Hardtails aren’t less fun, they’re just hard work!

+ spiky flat pedals and 5.10’s (~£120 total)
+ skills courses (~£180)
+ Other stuff (realised the other day that my clothes and ‘accessories’ on most rides cost more than my first bike!)
+ petrol (£depends how often you want to go somewhere new, but living in the Lakes I cant imagine this’d be that often).

Therefore a full sus will give him the confidence he wants.

I’d agreee with the earlier rebutal that it’s geometry not suspension that gives confidence. And bessides is it good to have more confidence than ability? Especialy in the Lakes where there isn’t a fireroad a few meters away to get the ambulance in?

If it was me, I would recommend whatever 120mm-140mm big brand full sus his local decent bike shop has (there are plenty of decent shops in the lakes)

YT
maybe a little hefty if he’s planning on big rides but has a solid spec and will leave you with enough money for a packet of fags.

You’ve not said how much riding he does and what bikes he currently rides when he’s at the trail centres. If I was buying my first £1500 mountain bike I’d be looking to try a few models, get a feel for what type of riding I am most likely to do and spend some time on here or reading the mags. Nearly all modern MTBs are very capable, but spending £1500 on a twitchy XC full susser will be a VERY different ride to spending the same on a long travel hard tail with relaxed geometry, so it’s not just a case of FS v HT.

When I got back into mountain biking mid-nougties, my only previous experience was on an old 1990 Spesh Hard Rock. I bought a totally unsuitable long stemmed, narrow bar XC HT with heavy and crap forks. I never really enjoyed it that much on the Peak District riding I was doing. Obviously the bug had bitten at this point and the bike arsenal grew 😆

mafiafish – Member
YT

The OP is wanting warranty back-up – I’ve heard YT don’t even respond to new sales enquiries…

The problem with starting on a full sus is you cant “get better”. You cant learn to ride properly on one, this needs to be done on a hardtail (the cheaper the better). So he’s bascially plateaued straight away with a full sus.

I found my first full Suss worked wonders for my head game in a way that gave me the confidence to do more stuff on my hardtail later on.

Totally agree, he can become a grumpy hardtail masochist later when there’s no joy left in MTBing for him.

😀

I don’t see the rebuttal at all. Geometry gives confidence if you know how to use it, but it won’t rescue you when you make a mistake (suspension will), it doesn’t allow you to ride a slightly less than perfect line without throwing you off (suspension will) and it doesn’t make the entire experience more comfortable and bump-free (suspension will), it doesn’t allow you to brake on uneven terrain or in braking bumps where the rear wheel is skipping around (suspension will).

Rear suspension gives the rear wheel so much more traction and grip; for a starting out rider it will save them a lot of near misses and make their ride so much more enjoyable that it’s likely they’ll ride more.

The problem with starting on a full sus is you cant “get better”. You cant learn to ride properly on one, this needs to be done on a hardtail (the cheaper the better). So he’s bascially plateaued straight away with a full sus.

This is such bullshit broscience it’s not true. I’m considering handing in my trance for a c456. I’ve had two full suspension bikes (a remedy and this trance). In that time (about a year of casual riding) I went from struggling to keep my pedals level to generally being the fastest person I meet at trail-centres (who doesn’t race dh), all on a full suspension. I even have the videos of my first ride, falling off and wobbling sitting on my pc next to the video of me blasting the new black run at llandegla.

I learnt to weight my pedals and bike, fight for grip, brake, pick lines, deal with rock gardens, 6ft+ drops, fast turns, switchbacks, berms, pump bumps, climb, bunnyhop, manual and ride generally pretty fast all on a full suspension.

Now that I can see parts of my technique that need work (jumping, manualing through speedbumps, line choice), I’m going to hone it with a flat pedalled hardtail, but I certainly would have ridden much less as a beginner on one.

Can we cease and desist in giving new riders the third degree about “learning properly”. Guess what, if you find something fun, you learn fast enough. I’m sure he would learn fast if you beat him with a stick every time he got something wrong. Is that a good experience? Should he pay for that? Get over yourself.

Get over yourself.

Indeed!

A £900 hardtail and a skills course would have him riding faster and in more comfort than any FS bike anyway (IMO). Especialy at trail centers.

riding faster

That’s the skills course, not the hardtail.

in more comfort

Again nope.

That’s the skills course, not the hardtail.

Exactly skills course + cheep bike is faster than an expensive bike.

I’m not saying don’t ever get a FS bike, I’ve got a Pitch, I love it, but to ride the same trails, at the same speed, it allows a lot of lazyness and mistakes that you learn not to make on the HT to creep in and are either swallowed up entriely, or becme a slight wobble on the FS.

It’s a bit like the roadie cassette argument yesterday, some of us get our kicks from pushing ourselves to go faster or take more risk, some people like to make life easy for themselves. The HT is always going to give you more of that ‘closer to the edge’ feeling.

If your mate is interested in buying 2nd hand i have this which has hardly been used and in mint condition.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-2012-boardman-fs-pro-mediumlike-new

Another FS v HT tip that someone alluded to above is traction. Climbing rocky technical climbs on a FS is often much easier with FS than HT. You can have skills courses coming out your ears, but sometimes science plays a part too.

When I rode trails around Derwent Valley on my long travel HT, it didn’t feel any less fun, or significantly slower/harder downhill than my FS. Uphills was much harder tho ‘cos I was always been bounced around whilst trying to pedal.

…. I think my point was that you can get a better HT than FS for the same £age without losing that much in the way of technical performance, but also gaining something else in efficiency.

I like riding FS and ride mine as the bike of choice over my HT unless I’m going very long, even though it’s harder work up the hills, and I live in West Yorks so we have proper hills! But I’d still go trail orientated HT if I had only one bike – but in all honesty I would be happy with any half decent bike over none at all whatever setup.

I also have to agree that the FS skill compensator line is BS, you may as well say HT 29er is a fitness compensator as it requires so much less effort to eat up the miles. But on my FS I go harder in the tech and on my HT i go faster ovetall… it all comes out in the wash

I think let the guy ride a good FS and HT on his normal trails, decide what he wants and prefers then, as posted above, go to a good LBS, plenty in the lakes and get a bike that fits properly from a reputable brand.

Whyte Trail ?

http://online.atb-sales.co.uk/p-1355-brand-new-high-spec-whyte-custom-build-trail-ht-medlrg.aspx

I think let the guy ride a good FS and HT on his normal trails, decide what he wants and prefers then, as posted above, go to a good LBS, plenty in the lakes and get a bike that fits properly from a reputable brand.

I don’t know if now is the season, but there’s normally quite a few demo days in the Lakes where he could try out a few bikes for free. Trying a few is much better than listening to us arguing about what bike is best.

This looks like absolutely brilliant value:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=67802

Leaves him with money for a skills course, and a few other bits and pieces. It is direct-sales, but CRC are in my opinion pretty good at returns and customer service. I would imagine anyway that if a warranty issue were to arise they would probably just suggest you get them fixed at a LBS and then send them the bill, unless its something serious, in which case you’re only paying UK rather than international postage.

It is also apparently designed by Brant, now of Shedfire/On-One, so should have the similarly confidence-inspiring geometry as the hardtails (456) suggested higher up the thread, which he also designed.

I’m not saying don’t ever get a FS bike, I’ve got a Pitch, I love it, but to ride the same trails, at the same speed, it allows a lot of lazyness and mistakes that you learn not to make on the HT to creep in and are either swallowed up entriely, or becme a slight wobble on the FS.

Could you not say the same about having a suspension fork ?

I have had rigids, FS bikes and steel Hardtails. You ride each on it’s merits and hopefully as fast as you can. like one of the previous posters, my riding really came along on when I got my first FS bike and I was more confident on the Hardtail as a result.

You can be lazy whatever you ride