Looking to get myself a long forked (up to 6″) hardtail for some forest fun and singletrack mayhem. Of the bikes I was looking at towards the end of last year most of them appear to have now gone up in price going above my £1,000 budget, some as high as £1,250. Massive increase!

I’m basically trying to get this bike on my company’s cycle2work scheme, which has a limit of £1,000.

I’ve been looking at Marin’s Rocky Ridge, Orange Crush, Saracen Zen 3 (now over £1k), Commencal Combi Deluxe, etc.

What do you all reckon? Any ideas?

Looked at an Orange Crush in leisure lakes – very nicely specced for money and seems like it would take a severe beating. Downside is that it felt quite heavy.

My preference would be a custom build using a Dialled Alpine frame or similar, specced how you want. A decent bike shop would accomodate this on the cycle to work scheme.

I’ve read on here you can top up the BtW scheme
The Commencal Combi is 100mm. Thats not really long travel (compared to everything else out there – especially given pretty much all XC race bikes are now 100mm)

Genesis Abyss = £1075?

On-one 456 SLX Revelation Complete (built up, in stock) I’m not sure whats going on with the handlebars though? If they’re ‘mary’ bars you could always swap them for some Easton EA30 685mm’s or something = £1150

Norco Sasquatch – though not showing on the UK part of their website for 2009 🙁 – but is in the canadian bit (Roughly £1k):

Kona Five-O Deluxe = £1200:

Kona Five-O = £1000 (though the (brown/white) ’08 one is as low as £710 (search google products):

I can’t think of any more (apart from frame only ones, or second hand ..

NS Bikes Core 2

😛

Spend the remaining 250 quid on some choice upgrades and it’d be awesome! It’s the same frame as the NS Surge which gets rave reviews. Takes up to a 160mm travel fork!

Though the Genesis Abyss would also be a good choice. I’ve got a steel framed Genesis Altitude, which is a bit more XC than you probably want (judging by your shortlist anyway), but it’s a great bike. The Abyss though ally would probably be great too, though of course steel is always better 😉

People, thank you all for your suggestions. Much appreciated.

I’m quite taken by an on-one 456. Will have to look into it more. They’re a great company as well, bought a Planet X road bike from them and their service is second to none, really good bunch of guys which I can thoroughly recommend.

Thanks again…

Looks like they’ve not got many left as complete builds. Do they deal with cycle to work schemes?

That Genesis looks terrific, great fork and build spec.

The On-One seems to have a QR fork, which I suspect you’d want to upgrade to a bolt-through at some point.

Given the price of forks now, it would make much more sense to buy a bike with one attached in the first place.

bikesr4riding
i bought a rocky ridge a week or so ago.
very very nice indeed.

The On-One seems to have a QR fork, which I suspect you’d want to upgrade to a bolt-through at some point.

I “got down” all the DH runs the big boys did on my Revelation the other day – same model as that one on the 456…

Just saying.

That NS Core 2 looks HOT though!

james – Member
Looks like they’ve not got many left as complete builds. Do they deal with cycle to work schemes?

I know, they go pretty fast when stock is in. They certainly do participate in the cycle to work, albeit via the Halfords deal tha my company have got setup. Basically Halfords buy the bike from On-one and the transaction is done that way. Nice.

ton – Member
bikesr4riding
i bought a rocky ridge a week or so ago.
very very nice indeed.

Hmmm, I’m also very tempted by a Rocky Ridge, especially with it’s Fox 15mm bolt through. Tempting. I saw a couple of awesome deals on eBay recently as well…

Bought an Orange Crush from Sunset Cyles for £860 last year before the 08 bike reductions in price, they still have a few 08’s advertised so you may be able to bag a better bargain!
The Crush is a proper trail hooligan, not the lightest I admit but for an all rounder it aint bad, nice spec too as Mildred has already pointed out.