After a recent major mechanical a mate of mine is looking for a new MTB to night ride off road in the winter, over some muddy rocky stuff that is local, not just bumpy bikepaths.

I’ve been wondering at what price point do real mountain bikes start, ie ones that will survive a winter of riding, off road and with a decent amount of maintenance, he’s good at that!

What does the STW hive mind think, are still talking £300 or is it more like £5-600?

Yours curiously,

CS

I would say the top end of your estimations!

Hardtail? 700. Full sus? 1000. New that is. Second hand? I sold a mint genesis tarn 10 for 350 last year but covid tax might mean doubling that!

I’d say something with hydraulic brakes e.g. the Calibre Cutter, £400.

You can get bikes for £3/400 from decathlon that work and have parts with recognisable names on them, but the voodoo’s and Boardman’s from Halfords for £6-800 would be much better.

To Clarify, definitely talking Hardtails here, and he won’t countenance a SS….

Well at £700 this ought to work.

https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/CBPXJFSX/planet-x-jack-flash-29er-sram-sx-mountain-bike

But honestly, depends what “proper” mountain biking is.

And the Halfords/Decathlon options do work.

But if you look round secondhand, if you know what you’re doing, is distinctly cheaper.

Pinnacle Kapur is meant to be decent and can be had pretty damn cheap. I have the Iroko and I love it.

I’d say about £700-800. To get a bike that functions well and will last.

Road bikes, I’d say £600-700

Calibre so some decent hard tails for not much. I’ve got their Line 29 which is the best specced/geo one and that was about £800. Lots of people enjoying their cheaper ones.

£400 will get you hydraulic discs and Shimano or SRAM components.
The fork won’t be great but it’ll be useable and won’t break at the first sight of mud.
That to me would fit your requirements.

Can he get one on the CTW scheme?

For winter muddy rocky rides I would factor in another ca £100-£120 for a decent pair of grippy tyres of appropriate compound. Will transform a cheap bike and multiply his enjoyment by a large factor

I’d say about £700-800. To get a bike that functions well and will last.

Road bikes, I’d say £600-700

You could get a £400 road bike that if you added pedals would be fine as long as it fits.

You can’t compare like for like. Bear in mind that £300 back in 1990 would have bought you a perfectly usable and raceable bike by 1990 standards. All my Konas bought in the nineties weren’t hard tails, they were fully rigid. Bouncy forks were in their infancy and there were no disc brakes or dropper posts on production bikes. Since then the marketing types have insisted on all those things on their entry level bikes, so obviously something’s got to give.

A Boadman MHT 8.6 is £650, with 11-46 1×10 (infinetly preferable to plastic-cheap lowend sram), a suntour air fork and tubeless ready wheels with Vittoria Barzos.

That’s about the lowest spec I’d feel ok doing the Borrowdale Bash on (a reasonable metric for something being a ‘proper mountain bike’ – as opposed to an easy trail centre red). It doesn’t have a dropper, so you could argue that really that should be £750 – but you could always lower your seatpost like we used to.

Secondhand for the same price I think you’d probably up that to a named frame, SLXish throughout and a fox 32/34 or revelation, or get something like that but poorly looked after for about £400. That’s a trade I’d always take, but that’s me.

The most basic bike you can get, and ideal for winter gloop is a rigid singlespeed. There’s no fancy components needed.

The last one I bought was 10 years ago (Genesis io for my daughter) and that was £500. It’s still in good nick and everything works well.

I’d suggest if you want gears and suspension, then you probably should be looking closer to the £1,000 mark unless consumable bikes are acceptable to you.

£350 will get you a bike from Decathlon or Calibre that will get you round any trail centre

I’d agree that a decent set of tyres would be a good 1st upgrade

You don’t have to spend a fortune on those, On one will usually have since good stuff on the go

I wouldn’t expect a £400 bike to last well under regular “proper” off road night riding.

I agree youd be looking at it as a base to upgrade as things wear out

That Boardman looks about as good as you’ll get. It has a reasonable fork, hydro disk brakes, and a decent drivetrain. I would put a better tyre on the front and a dropper post, but that is a very good bike for that price.

Decent tyres +1, and a dropper post.

You could get a £400 road bike that if you added pedals would be fine as long as it fits.

Posted 2 hours ago

I forgot to add that a road bike to me must be under 10kg or ideally under 9kg which one at around the £600-700 mark should be.

Agree on tyres. Most mountain bikes come with tyres whose tread is optimistic at best to meet the demands of a muddy uk trail. If the stock tyres have decent volume though I’d just replace the front with something a bit grippier, back tyre not as important IMO.

I’m not sure if Covid tax has eased up, but second hand should see him good with £500 if past years are to go by.

My mate wanted to buy I bike. He was trying to spend £300 and kept looking at rubbish old 26ers on eBay. Convinced him to spend more. Bought a genesis longitude for £575, he’s loving it

It depends on how much ‘tech’ and ‘gnar’ you are going to do. If you are riding along rocky trails that are jeep tracks in the hills, then a sub £500 bike would be fine. But once you start throwing it down singletrack, you need something different.

My daughter’s Whyte 603 was £650 and I wish it was my size cos it’s begging for a bit of proper singletrack shredding. It’s heavy, has 2×10 and a coil fork, but the fork seems well enough made and has adjustable damping, but the geo and setup is bang on. I don’t think anyone shelling out on that would be disappointed.

Most of the bikes we looked at under that price, the £4-500 range were reasonable in terms of quality but they had more pedestrian geo and whilst fine for general riding around off road would not be as rewarding or fun on anything technical.

Having said all that, you probably would need to budget for tyres since most bikes (including the Whyte) don’t come with gnarly mud tyres that would suit winter riding in some parts of the country. In others they might though, depends where you are and what your trails are made of.

Another vote for Go Outdoors, the Rake and the Line 20 are standout at £350 and £430 if you can find one but they actually have quite a few options around this price that would be absolutely fine. Though definitely you can get some big upgrades by going up a little, frinstance the Line 10 is a big step up at £550, even gains a dropper post. They even come with decent tyres

(as far as wintery use/maintenance goes, getting out of the suntour xcm/xcrs is worthwhile- they’re actually perfectly decent forks but they’re not well sealed and the internals don’t tolerate muck at all, they go from “fine” to “not worth repairing” in just a ride or two. Though, equally, there’s quite often something to be said for a cheap bike with a decent frame but cheap forks and then just upgrading it later)

I think maybe STW is the wrong place to ask this question tbh! THough,maybe the right place to look for a better used bike in the range.

Any bike with deore drivetrain or above, so was about £600-£700 6-7 years ago

You can still get a Deore kitted Orbea for that money but that is still above budget.

I don’t know the answer, but if your buddy is riding proper rocky things then they may well save money in the medium/long run spending a bit more now on more durable gear. Plus it’ll probably be more fun.

Seeing as how your friend is good at bike maintenance then 2nd hand could make sense, I built up a bike last year…2nd hand frame and wheels off Pinkbike ads, fork new off German eBay(!) drivetrain from janky old parts..new tyres, and new Deore brakes from Merlin (super cheap as needed to swap around from Euro setting)…complete Pace 529 for about 600, I guess I’m not counting parts bin bits in the cost, but still a bargain for what it is.