Hi all,

Due to a forthcoming change in circumstances i’m going from 2 mountain bikes down to 1 – I get out rarely enough as it is & realistically that’s only going drop further… They’re both pretty old but in good nick & decent spec and i’m wondering realistically which one I should keep – help me decide eh?

Bike 1 is a 2007 vintage Santa Cruz Chameleon, coil Pikes (could use new seals, but nothing £20 & a spare afternoon wouldn’t sort), set up 1×9 with xt & Hope mono minis, Thomson post/stem

Bike 2 is a 2006 flavour Heckler (DHX 5.0), coil Pikes again (vgc this time), set up 2×9 with xt/xtr, Hope mono m4s, Thomson stuff again

To be honest i’m sticking more to trailcentres these days, mainly for predictability / time reasons so either bike is perfectly suitable – i’m not generally out riding for more than 3/4 hours at a time so all-day comfort isn’t an issue – there’s also the option of moving some bits from one bike to the other. Whichever I keep, i’m hanging onto both wheelsets – I have one nice Hope set & another old Bontrager/DT Swiss pair (which need a bit of tweaking to keep right so aren’t really worth selling once i’ve stuck new bearings, pawls & a few spokes in them), so i’ll have a choice of wheels / tyres to hand whatever.

The practical me says that the Chameleon should stay as it’s enough for the riding I do, especially with 2.4″ tyres stuck on it – it’s also a bit lighter & more suited to occasional xc rides round the local woods and I could always stick the front mech back on it to expand the gearing a bit. But the Heckler is nice & I might “need” 5″ of error-correction at the rear at some point.

Thoughts?
J

my thoughts would be to sell both frames and keep the choice parts (Thomson, hope wheels, either set of brakes) and with the funds from selling off the rest invest in the best frame you can find secondhand.

my first thoughts were to suggest a mid-travel 120-140mm full suss for a confortable ride and enough bounce to help get you out of trouble.
but if you’re riding will be rare to none then maybe a hardtail would be good to keep maintenance (ie excuses) to a minimum. that way the bike will be ready when you are rather than finding out you needed to sort out the bushings or fettle suspension.

I’d say keep an eye out for a nice Cotic Soul which should provide more than enough entertainment and be cheap enough second hand

unless you need the space, given the likely resale value of either, can you not keep both ?

Heckler. If you really want to make it more xc pick up a shorter air shock (drops travel a little, you probably wont use it though) and a 2nd lighter wheelset with light tires. Uturn for the Pikes too made them a bit more versatile. Great bikes though.

Maintenance issues for the heckler are £10 on bearings every 2 years and maybe the odd shock bush. If the shock dies £50 will get another, that’s what I did when I had one.

Cheers for the thoughts guys – I had thought about selling pretty much everything & picking up something like a Soul or short travel FS frame & forks, or selling absolutely everything & buying a complete all rounder, as yet it’s all up in the air!

I would hang onto both but kinda need the space, plus the only thing worse than a bike sitting gathering dust is two… I was leaning towards keeping the chameleon as it’s great fun to ride & doesn’t hold me back any but it used to knock the sh!t out of me after a couple of hours… but as that’s all I get out for these days it might not be that bad.

I might stick them both in the car on Monday & give them both a run out to see which makes the trails come alive more 😉

J

If your keeping both sets of wheels anyway, I would keep the best of the drivetrain, brakes, pikes etc and build up the Chameleon. But I would also keep the Heckler frame under the bed! The other bits that are not up to snuff sell/give away.

Both have 1 1/8 headsets, threaded bb, qr back ends etc, so you could swap between the two frames when you feel the need (just have the same headset in both frames to make swapping forks around a bit easier), job jobbed.

I was in a similar situation a years or so ago, with a 26″ FS bike a HT. In the end I decided to sell most of the stuff frame, forks and wheels etc and went for a fun steel 29er hardtail. Ended up with a Transition TransAm 29er (which I love) but I was looking for anything with a fun shortish wheelbase, Cotic Solaris, Singular or Genesis maybe, there’s plenty out there. My thoughts where the Steel is a less harsh, (I had a SC Chameleon, one of the most fun rides I’ve ever owned but as you say it is harsh) the 29er wheels with bigish tyres 2.4etc are pretty close second place to a 26″ FS bikes when it comes down to how they cope with rough surfaces helping you carry lots of speed where maybe you’d loose out on the Chameleon, ok you might not have the travel to save you when casing the top of a jump etc but that was an acceptable compromise for me. In the back of my mind I also had a niggle that 1-1/8 forks where harder to come by as 26″ offers less choices these days tyres and rim wise, plus the value of bikes with 1-1/8 forks ad 26″ wheels is falling pretty quick, so if I was going for a 29er frame I wanted one that would accept a tapered folk.

The TransAm is Awesome like riding a big BMX and with 29er wheels is the perfect rig in my view trail centres. Also makes local riding on trails you know that bit more playful. Plus without a shock to worry about and 1×10 with a cheep eBay range extender I’ve not had to any really maintenance issues.

I’ve got a similar dilemma. I’ve got a lovely full-suss bike (Transition Smuggler) and a fun rigid fatbike (Surly Ice Cream Truck), which between them take care of all my off-road needs. Then there is the 2013 Orange Five, which I clearly don’t need. I’ve even made a few half-hearted attempts to sell it. But then I take it for “one last ride” and fall in love with it all over again. No, I don’t need it, but just look at it, why would I want to sell it?

Fettlin – I had thought of doing just that, the headsets (Cane creek / Hope) both use the same bottom bearing & race (I originally had the Chameleon, then moved all the bits over to the Heckler, over time the Chameleon frame mysteriously built itself back up with similar parts)

If however i’m keeping both frames – for the sake of the couple of hundred quid I’d get back for the (slightly less tidy) forks & other bits, i’d be as well keeping them both as is… which i’m starting to think is actually a more sensible option than chopping everything in & ending up with a compromise between the two… especially if I need to start throwing money towards it to get something nice…

And having recently ridden an NS 27.5 140mm travel number (1×10, 12-42) and a spangly carbon Intense 29er (2×10) as hire bikes I would probably have been happier on mine… although that Intense Hard Eddie was fast, I couldn’t get find my confidence on the bigger wheels at all…

So – in a typical stw change of direction, can everyone now confirm to me that 2 bikes, front wheels off & tucked away at the back of the cupboard, take up pretty much the same (or even less) space as 1 bike stored with both wheels on with a spare pair of wheels next to it? 😆

The offending articles

I was going to suggest exactly what you’ve done. You’re absolutely right, they’ll take no more space than one anyway.

If you really did decide to go down to one, unless you can fit a rack and stuff to the HT then the FS is probably more versatile so stick with that.

Makes sense.
Just loosen the stem and turn the bars 90° on the one your not using, that’s what I’ve done in the past in my shed. Not much wider than the wheels then.