Jedi reviews seem to pop up weekly, heres 2 from google, other bike skills courses are available but he’s on here fairly often.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/uk-bike-skills-a-lesson-with-jedi/
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/my-day-with-jedi-ukbikeskills

Buying a freeride bike can’t make you Darren Bearcloth overnight, but something half decent won’t break while you’re learning, and plenty of people on here have 456’s as a second bike for ‘just messing about in the woods’. And a side note, bikes break, if you want to ride like those videos, expect them to break a lot. The difference between breaking a 456 and a £3000 bike is the 456 frame costs £200 to replace (the forks about the same, the wheels about the same), a £3k bike probably won’t be any stronger (although bits might not wear out as quickly), but to keep it in the same condition will cost more (£1k frames, £800 forks and the like). And a £900 bike will have comprimises like cheep bearings, which will need replacing, but you can then upgrade bits as you go allong, and if you do decide to get a £3k bike, you can take your £900 hardtail, buy a frame for about £1k and transfer 90% of the parts accross, the advantage being you’ve been able to ride the bike for a year and upgrade bits while you save.

[edit] as if to prove my point, imagne buying the 456 now, then something like this frame in a years time once you’ve aquired the tools to maintiain the original bike and you’d have a very nice bike indeed, http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-2011-santa-cruz-butcher-frame-1

How old are you?

You mentioned you are only 5’3″

It really doesn’t make sense spending that much money on a bike for you to only grow out of it in a year.

Ok the 456 it is, although its not available for another 2 months 🙁

I just turned 16 and that height is false, I measured myself again and I am 5ft4 borderline 5

In 6 months it will be winter again.

whatever you choose, do you want to miss out on summer? £1300 is a very good amount of money to spend a first, non halford, special. 2nd hand fs, or new hardtail. either way…enjoy.

Can’t decide if this is a troll or not. Good effort though!

My advice : buy a book on bicycle maintenance, and build one up yourself over time. Then you will know how to fix it, should it go wrong.

I built my 222 up for around £500 (in it’s current state), and it’s very much a race bike…

http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/7864331/

Hadn’t spotted the due date, I still think it’s a deal worth waiting for TBH, and in 2 months the weather might improve a bit, no point destroying a new drivetrain riding it in mud 😛

The other advantage of the 456 is it’s a similar (quite long) length in all 3 sizes, so a 16″ will last you untill you’re ~6ft as long as the seatpost is long enough.

I think a DH/FR/AM bike is overkill unless you’re local woods are somewhere like Warncliffe or Innerleithen. Where are you?

i’m going for troll benefit of the doubt. the sun’s just come out.

Can’t decide if this is a troll or not. Good effort though!

+1

If your income and time is limited (and it will be at 16) don’t tie yourself up with an expensive £3K, blingy, thief magnet when what you need is a day in day out trail machine that you can throw a leg over and ride without worrying about creaking pivots or Shocks needing a service every ten minutes…

Riding in general and especially DH is a constant learning excercise (we’re all still learning no matter how sage we might think we seem) and it’s not so much about the bike or what suspension you do or don’t have fitted, its much more about learning to handle a bike, read and react appropriately to the terrain…
Buying an FS bike won’t help in that respect if anything it may just compensate for poor line choices and technique until you get to something where both you and the bike are out of your depth and you have a bigger stack…

Don’t waste £2-3K on a bike, if you have to have an FS (Against most of the advice on this thread) head back to Halfords and spend no more than £1K on a boardman FS it will do what you seem to be after has a reasonable spec’ and saves you rolling up your sleeves and getting into the murkey world of “Giant Vs Specialized Vs Trek Vs another brand” and the never ending comparisons between specs and weights.

If you do choose to heed the advice on this thread I’d give serious consideration to the 456 Evo TINAS linked, the £100 saving over a boardman can be invested in Fuel, Riding tuition, clothing/helmet/gloves etc or simply saved in order to fix the first part you will enevitably break…

Good luck with your decision…

And head over to SouthernDownhill.com for all things DH related… including a classifieds section 😉

It was a good read until the Troll thing came to light!

I’m looking for a bargain DH bike – like a £300 bargain downhill bike.

My Enduro is too nice to wreck at Fort William – felt sorry for the poor little thing last year 🙁

Whats this troll thing?
This is not a spoon- I live in devon, i just went out to the woods and tried a pretty technical trial and it has made me realise a hard tail is fine for now so i will go with that bike in 2 months 😀
I think i am being accused of being a troll? if im not mistaken, i guess all i can say is that im not, if you dont believe me fine, but i dont see what has made you think i am

Troll with a very dry sense of humour perhaps?

Thanks Thisisnotaspoon for the great help. What is the most you think i can put the 456 through before it gets to much

ok your actually peeving me of with this troll thing, if you think im a troll fine, but can you tell me why? what am i doing wrong.

456 is built for abuse far beyond most poeple’s skills, you’ll brake/break before it does. don’t worry about the trolling thing, if you’re genuine, then you’re doing nothing wrong, rise above it. it’s just people are wary of wasting time on wind-up merchants, of which there are plenty.

Sorry if i did do something to annoy people, my bad, im just new to the whole biking scene and i have little knowledge bikes etc
im liking the look of the 456 now, i may even pre order it tonight 😀
Thanks again for all the help

mattamomo, i went to innerleithan to ride the dh stuff on sunday.
i was riding a 456. i am way bigger and way heavier than you.
you should be fine on a 456 with a nice set of 160mm forks.
and a added bonus will be, once you can ride dh stuff on a hardtail, it will be a doddle on a full sus bike.

I had a (secondhand) 456 (and seriously tempted to get another one), spent 2 happy years riding it up/down/allong everything from an XC race to downhill tracks via a summer trying to dirtjump on it. Then sold it for what I paid for it, they take a lot of abuse!

I’ve got sektor forks (a model up in terms of damping, but the same chassis) on my Pitch and blew a seal my fox rear shock* at the weekend, so they’re pretty relaible too.

*yet another reason not to get into full suspension!

There’s some good riding in Devon, Gawton has DH tracks and a trail, Exmoor/Dartmoor aren’t far away, and South Wales is close enough for a daytrip. Find a local cycling club (or ask on here if anyones local), I managed plenty of trips away bribing people with money for petrol to let me tagg along.

once you can ride dh stuff on a hardtail, it will be a doddle on a full sus bike.

This.

It’s very tempting to go and buy the biggest bounciest bike possible, but it won’t do you any favours in years to come. Buy a hardtail, with 140/150/160mm travel forks. Ride that for a few years, and then possibly upgrade to a full bouncer.

Yh it looks good, i think 456 is the bike im going to get (im just disappointed about the big wait but oh well)
To keep everything in one thread i have another question
where in the south west of England (i live in devon) is the best mountain bike parks that i can get good use out of the 456.

once you can ride dh stuff on a hardtail, it will be a doddle on a full sus bike.

You can tell the pople at a trail center a mile off who’ve started on FS bikes, the pople who started off riding hardtails are much much smoother and generaly faster.

thisisnotaspoon, you answered my question before i even asked lol

I’ve been riding….well, since I was a nipper…. but only got my first full sus aged 21. Not to blow my own trumpet, but I think I’m a pretty smooth & consistent rider…

Watch this, Now tell me you need full sus, really? Unless you are racing DH a good AM bike will do.

However if I were you I would get a tough HT, yeah a 456 is good, with an air fork at 140mm. 160mm is overkill on a HT imo.

If you are unsure on what you want – you need to ride more. A bombproof HT will do a lot of different riding well. The money that you have saved spend on tools, because when you learn and rag stuff, having to wait 7 days for the LBS to fix stuff sucks.

When I started MTB I new very little, I bought a 120mm HT, there was stuff I didn’t like/stuff broke I decided to fix it all myself – I learn’t a ton, My confidence in my bike grew as I began to understand how exactly everything worked, and that if took things too far and broke anything, all it needed was a bit of allen key treatment in the evening to get it fixed (usually).

Nah, not a troll… But it’s clearly the school holidays 😆

My 2p worth…

If you’re new to it i’d saying buying 2nd hand is a bad option, far too much that could be wrong with a 2nd hand bike, far too easy to end up with a duff one.

Get down a decent shop, get a hardtail with 5″ or so travel forks on it (whatever fits your budget), they can do a bit of everything.

456 is good, but mail order only, might be better to find a decent LBS and buy from there. They’ll help to get everything setup, make sure brake levers/shifters are all in the right place and things like that.

When stuff breaks, buy the tools and learn how to fix it.

Ignore the stuffy old men praising hardtails, a 16 year old should get something like this-

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=75042

Anyone i know who has stayed for a good amount of time on a hardtail riding DH have turned into amazing riders.

At first you’ll be slower than your full sus buddies, don’t worry about it, you’ll then get to about the same speed as them over time, then marginally faster.

Give it atleast a year or so, then get a full sus, you’ll then be destroying your buddies.

As said above, a hardtail means you learn properly from the outset, start on a full sus, you will pick up more bad habits that will refuse to go away.

That kona bass would be a good option too, not so much suspension “cheat”, but a little to save yourself if things go really wrong.

Now I am doubting myself again, shall i definitely get the 456 or a full suspension, because i am keen on the 456 now.
I have looked up the gawton park, it looks nice, would you recommend it for learning new skills and advancing from a begginer level?

My advice? Don’t worry so much about what bike you buy now. You don’t really know what you want it do do yet, or what you want it to be like – just buy a bike and ride it. The 456 is a great bike, it’ll do pretty much anything you ask it to (a couple of mates run them, I have a Ragley which isn’t completely different) and like people have said, you’ll learn to ride MUCH better on a hardtail than a full sus.

But as someone else said earlier, the best bike in the world is the one you are riding RIGHT NOW. So get something (anything! Even your Halfords bike!) and go ride 🙂

£1300 you say?
What about the old blue pig?
£1250 complete bike
Speaking as someone who has a 5 inch travel FS bike and a 140mm hardtail, I’d get rid of the FS before I got rid of the hardtail, the HT is just much more fun for this type of riding. I only take the FS out if its going to be a long day out, as being old enough to be the OP’s dad, I feel beaten up more quickly on the HT, not something that a 16 yr old need worry about…

456 or the Ragley linked above sounds like a safe bet to me. If you desperately want a full sus down the line just swap the frame out, if you hang around here/BR/Pinkbike etc you’ll spot some crazy bargains.

Selling a 456 frame second hand you’d get back about 75% of what you put in, so no huge risk.

I bet the riders in the vid, on the track they’re riding, could make your Halfords bike look awesome fun though to be honest 🙂

Thanks, I have no doubts about the 456 now, except I will look into the ragley but im very sure I will pick up a 456.
And i want to put a particular thanks out to the community here, i have looked on many other sites for help and here i have learnt far more.

You’ll soon be asking “what tyres?” and riding a Five..

Oh i am very aware of how many questions im gonna have 😉

Get back under your bridge troll!! We can do without this nonsense!

Rupertpostlethwaite- whats your problem? seriously its going to far and your spoiling the great help i have been given here

I think the 456 have a really long wheelbase/chainstay which is fine for xc and downhill stability but not as good for having fun and doing jumps on.

fwiw I got my Trailstar LT frame for £100 posted. Bargain.