I was just looking at what bike I am going to buy next (not for a while tho) and started to narrow it down but realised my selection seemed to be based more on colour (opps) than anything else. This just got me thinking about whether people brought their last bike off a mag review, advert, friends recommendations or like me more down to the look.

Sorry for my random Friday thought but it is nearly the weekend and my mind is not on work today!!

Oh and the bike I liked the look of was the Whyte 19 in What MTB mag – the white and orange one!!

At 6'4" and a heavy git, I wanted to try a 29er.

Couldn't be happier with it. Got an On One Inbred 29er with the carbon forks. Read some reviews, seemed well though of and you can't really beat the price of them. Possibly the best fitting bike I've ever had.

It was also a relatively cheap experiment as I wasn't sure how I'd get on with it.

Thieving gets stole all my MTBs but one so I had to replace the hardtail and FS with one bike and I picked the one with the best spec with the intent of buying a nice frame to hang it all off. Never did get round to buying that new frame 🙁

cos mbr gave it 10/10 (joke!)

cos work were doing the c2w scheme again

cos i like new toys

cos it was the best one i tested

Why did you buy your last bike?

I Walked into the LBS and said "Do you do 0% finance?"

"Yes of course" was the reply.

I read a bit about it in the mags and then had a shot of one at the Laggan Demo day and was so impressed I went and bought one. (Bionicon Golden Willow btw)

to ride it

Road – I didn't have one.
MTB – the one I had was shite!

So I should test ride some bikes first then or do you think talking to people and looking at reviews will help steer me to a more performance over colour option?

Why do they make so many nice bikes!!! I fancy a full blow DH rig even though I will never really ride it!

I think the question should be more like "Why didn't you buy that bike you really wanted recently". Few of us have any particularly good reasons for buying that last bike.

My commuter and hardtail both developed seriously expensive problems at the same time, so I bought an off-the-peg rigid ss to see me through for a bit, covering both bases.

Took a test ride, had never felt so right on a bike and was riding better than I'd ever ridden.

I think I'd have quite happily walked off with the battered demo bike if it meant not having to wait a fortnight for my new one, such was the joy I got from riding it…

Because my bike was stolen! so I got myself another stumpy – loved the first one so much.

Roadrat frame was bought cos I wanted a new commuter that would do drops, discs and mudguards (and probably a rack eventually). Not much out there that does all that and I love my Soul so thought "why not?".

Soul was bought on a combination of personal recommendations from a couple of mates who had one, interweb hype and mag reviews. It's AMAZING.

Snapped the full sus just as I found out about the C2W scheme.

Hello! Blizzard!

It was the only bike that made me want to do a second lap at Bike Radar Live.

A mate turned up with it, and it was the right size and I didn't have one.
Ridley cx

My old Mongoose HT was fun downhill but it always bothered me that it was so hefty, and it was starting to look really beaten up. When I saw the 1.7kg Boardman frame going cheap, I built it up from the Mongoose. The resulting bike is more fun to pedal. I'll be riding it instead of the FS over the winter.

It was really cheap and is exactly what I want.

Utang

I just got a new frame after a year of looking around.
My old hardtail had no disc mounts ( yes it was that old).
There is so much good stuff out there ,it makes it hard to settle on one .
Then it gets down to what your budget is and where/how often you are going to use it.
I was faffing about and changing my mind so much,that in the end I just thought **** it ,I am having that one. Of course having a c2w scheme helped a lot on the spending side.

Cos some silly bint hit me with her car and trashed my commuter and me, cue a bike shopping trip to Bikelove!

…because you can't ride on the track on a road bike or MTB.

Yes, I bought a track bike. For riding on the track.

Orange Five – took it for a test ride, 'cos the Heckler I wanted to try was already out and the kid in the shop said 'these seem popular'. Came back giggling – lots of fun. Tried the Heckler the next week – then got the Five.

Now, as to why I was looking – my Genius cracked.

…because my old one was rubbish, and creaked, and the frame was bendy.

Cos it is one of the only 'burly' full sus frames that can be run single speed which got me thinking about changing my geared full sus, had to work a saturday so started looking on ads, found a second hand one, couple of emails later and it arrived on the Thursday!

Firstly I was a bit fed up with maintaining 3 bikes I had a Hummer, a Nicolai Helius AM and an Inbred SS for winter duties. All 3 were lovely bikes, but 2 and a bit drive-trains, 3 forks, tyres and what not was driving me nuts, there was always something to do, I didn't ride the Helius enough, and if I'm honest as lovely as the hummer was it sucked like a $3 whore are the merest hint of moisture. What I wanted was a combination of the travel of the Helius, but without all the hassle that comes with looking after a full suss (pivot, bearings all that nonsense) the indestructibility of the hummer, and the ability to run SS.

So I sold the lot and bought a Chameleon. Class bike, tough as old boots, takes a longer fork than I'll ever put on it, goes like stink, should have done it years ago.

Cos i wanted a big bouncy bike to ride at fun parks with my mates.

So I bought a Marin Rocky Ridge then realised how good it was in the mountains, now its got a longer stem, flat, wide bars, and occasionally bar ends, and it hasn't seen the light of Glentress once. best off-road tourer i've ever ridden.

Sorry Marin, you can't shake your image that easily 😀

cos i sold exactly the same frame 2 years ago and wanted another one as it was great.

and it is.

sunn bmix.

Wanted a winter trainer for roadie work.

Looked for bargain end of 'production' bikes at Pauls cycles and something that would take mudguards and a carrier for commuting and bought a Trek 1200 on offer.

I already owned a few Trek roadbikes and one mtb and was impressed by the warranty.

I already had mtbs so didn't need a new one.

because i wanted to learn how to jump properly again. And i'm having a one third of life crisis… So i brought a dirt jump bike, Its great fun. I'm currently trying to 180 hop on the flat. nearly there… At about 150 at the moment. Then it will be 360's of drops… I hope

I had a cheap Ti hardtail previously (Setavento with Rohloff), and while I liked it, I kind of had to work at liking it. So I got the Ti frame I should've had all along – a Soda – and spent a while getting exactly the right parts for it (Revs, matching blue Hope headset, seatcollar and hubs). And now every time I ride it I wish I could ride every day. Which, after all, is a good thing when you've just spunked £1500 on it! 🙂

It was cheap, it's orange and it's light. Trouble is I reckon buying a second cheap bike for the commute (and a bit of fun – it's bmx 😛 ) may have been a major mistake . . . I now have upgrade fever and I can see this leading to an expensive, orange lighter bike 😕

Because every review i saw of the bike was giving excellent ratings (Yes MBR and YES its a Spesh Enduro '03)
Plus some dim bint killed my Zaskar, so i had an insurance payout just waiting for a bike.
Best bit was i moved all the kit off the Zaskar onto an old Marin frame and get some cheap wheels
Hey presto decent Full suser and work hack bike. Now i have CHOICES!

was tired of the bearings in the blur creaking/needing to be replaced all the time, so I went back to an old favourite instead (LRS).

I wanted to try DH and it was super cheap.

cause i wanted to.

wanted a steel, hardtail for 150mm forks aimed at descending for a while.
found some 150mm forks up for a good price.

then the summer seasons came out in pretty colours the next day

destiny! (though not got it yet)

Cause my old bike died and the new one ticked just about every box I required. Oh, and it timed nicely for our bike-to-work scheme. Staff discount AND tax-back makes it half price 🙂

8" travel F&R
front mech compatible.
lighter than 38lbs
ridable up and down hill.

It's a Bionicon Ironwood.

Because my '06 Enduro was becoming a pig to drag around, I was losing interest and losing fitness – obviously a new bike was the only cure.

Had my heart set on a Remedy 8 ('08), but a mate bought one. Still love it, but didn't want the same bike as him. I then turned my attention to another Spesh; another Enduro to be precise. I started off looking at deals on alu ones, then the Pro Carbon and eventually settled on buying an S-Works frame etc. to build up myself.

Great choice and great bike – couldn't be happier with it.

Because it was orange and cheap.

was looking for full suss bike & tried just about every Spesh demo bike in the LBS but couldn't quite make my mind up.

Was surfing the net one night & looked on the LBS website – saw a Rocky Mountain full suss with £750 off & called into the LBS the next day. Once around the carpark on it & went back inside with me credit card to buy it.

Nearly 2 years later & I still luvre it 🙂