Why shouldn't I get a Boardman Pro FS?

I've been deliberating getting a new steed for some time – much as I love my trusty and faithful '96 Stumpy (retro is very cool in my book!), I feel the need for a full bouncer to give my aging body some respite!

In the past I was a true bike-pimp and was as much into bling as practicality, but as time's gone one I'm now more interested in function and value.

The Boardman Pro FS seems to hit all the right notes to me – I'm into XC riding, with a bit of all-mountain thrown in and this bike seems such great value for money considering the kit you get. The frame/sus design is pretty non-controversial and should suit my style of riding where I can ride most anything and not feel like I'm bobbing all over the place when I pedal.

Now, here's the dilemma. Although I could afford to spend (plenty) more than the £1,300 that Halfrauds are asking for a Pro/FS, why should I? Bearing in mind that pose/bling value is not important, what other options should I consider and what will they offer me that the Boardman can't?

Looking forward to your input!

Cheers

Si

Why spend more than you need to unless you want to?

If it's going to do the job and you're not bothered about 'boutique', get it bought!

Got a ribble Sportive – certainly not boutique – but I don't give a sh*&e. If it rides well and costs £1000 less than a similar ride with a 'boutique' name I am noth bothered! Get it if you are not bothered about fashion/high end stuff 🙂

If you think it's probably the right bike for you, then buy one while they're still available.

If you don't like it you can always flog the frame and swap the bits to a new one.

Why shouldn't I get a Boardman Pro FS?

Cos you'd be buying a bike from Halfords?

Can't think of anything else!

Edit: just had a look. It's a very boring looking bike. HTH.

Ride one.

I'd consider some other non-boutique FS bikes in the same price range e.g. specialised, giant which have great component specs for the price. But the boardman looks exceptional value.

I've just got a frame-only boardman 2008 HT and am impressed with the build quality, lightness and it rides fine too. What I'm saying is, the frames are not duffers.

Most Boardmans that pass through our workshop have issues from new. I would not recommend one. Had a flatbar Boardman in the other day with a double chainset but triple shifters. Not a show stopper but the sort of cost cutting detail that bugs me.

@ DezB unless someone owns a very special bike, then most bikes are boring to look at, Trek, Specialized, Kona etc spring to mind. Halfords may employ monkeys in a few stores, but I've had the same dealings with 'proper' bike shops.

@ mtbflix – It's funny how the magazine reviews don't mention anything about these issues you speak of, in fact they're usually the opposite. As for the triple shifters I always thought this was to allow more adjustment on the front mech? All my road bikes have three or more clicks on the FD.

I've seen the Pro FS in the flesh a few times, and IMO it actually looks pretty nice, I would suggest the the OP that they read a few unbiased magazine reviews first.

Ciao

@ mtbfix – yeh my old 105's were for use with doubles or triples – can't see a problem there! Surely the issues are probably d.t. bad assembly rather than components?

flatbar Boardman in the other day with a double chainset but triple shifters.

Perfectly normal.

Cos a proper fs bike requires real design rather than the halfords buyer choosing one 'off the peg'. There's a reason boardmans look high spec compared to the big name competition. Buy a spec, trek or giant…

All my road bikes have three or more clicks on the FD

STIs have a minimal 'trim' click to avoid rub and, yes, a triple will work a double. This was a flatbar road bike with an SRAM 3 speed shifter. As I say, attention to detail in the spec.

Surely the issues are probably d.t. bad assembly

Being sold exclusively through Halfords makes this near inevitable.

I guess if its an informed choice then why not.

The cost is another issue, I am careful ,about spending £5.00 !

My mate has the £1000 one, it's great. Ride is a bit more XC than AM (quite a long top tube) but it really is a nice bike to ride.

The only cost cutting measure I noticed was lovely smooth old cannondale style welds on the front end, and normal welds on the rear suspension.

Speaking of which, the rear suspension is very active, traction is excellent uphill. Downhill it's not as good as my Meta 5 but it's not too far off. I would buy one if I needed a new bike now.

i own a boardman pro fs and cant rate it highly enough.put simply if they were sold through evans or je james etc we wouldnt even be having this conversation.bad past experiences of halfords have tarnished many peoples opinion and im also one of those people.didnt stop me buying one tho.
as for build quailty, most bikes are 80 % built in factorys then pedals, wheels and h bars are fitted in store.this goes for all sorts of brands and mistakes can be made in any store, big or small.
mine came to me in a perfect state.the shifters and levers were not particuarly tight ( but i had to adjust them anyway and the pedal threads were not greased but how many shops do? (and i changed to spds anyhow)
buy one, there great and you cant get better for the money.if you feel the need to spend more in time, buy a swish frame and swap all the top notch components over??

unless someone owns a very special bike, then most bikes are boring to look at, Trek, Specialized, Kona etc spring to mind

I totally disagree. The latest Treks and Specializeds look bloody great – the designers have put a lot of effort into making them look good too. But that's opinions for ya.

Cos a proper fs bike requires real design rather than the halfords buyer choosing one 'off the peg'. There's a reason boardmans look high spec compared to the big name competition. Buy a spec, trek or giant…

😆

firstly it's a proven design and it does work well
secondly where else have you seen these 'off the peg' frames other than on Boardman bikes?

My boardman is great. No issues with the halfords (ex Bikehut) either. in fact, the idea that halfords is rubbish and all LBS's are amazing is complete rubbsih IMO! theres good/bad examples of both.

the shifters and levers were not particuarly tight ( but i had to adjust them anyway and the pedal threads were not greased but how many shops do?

Brake levers and shifters need to be tight, you can't assume people will check them, that's dangerous. Pedals should be greased, any shop worth their salt would do it.

Good god, there's some snobs on here…
🙁

I thought this thread was reasonably free from such comments actually.

My comments were saying that whoever put odannyboy's Boardman together is likely to hurt someone! It's certainly not what I'd call 'a perfect state'. If they've not done stupidly obvious things like tightening controls and greasing pedals what else have they neglected to do!?

Didn't mean to start a ruck here.

I'm not particularly worried about the "service" I get from the vendor, I tend to buy things based on my own research rather than the advice offered by the "experts" in the shop, so the vendor being Halfords doesn't put me off so that's a moot point. If Halfords don't grease the pedals, I really don't care, I can do that myself if necessary. I'm not prepared to pay £500 extra just to have the bike built up by an enthusiast in the LBS if that's the only tangible difference that I'll see between this and say a Trek, Giant or another Spesh.

Components are components, and can be compared like for like so I can directly compare the Boardman with a custom build or a major-brand using the same/similar components, the frame is a different matter however, and to me should be the only difference between this model and another more expensive (but similarly equipped) option. I've not heard anything that makes me think that a more expensive bike is gonna offer more?

At the end of the day, if I bought the Boardman and REALLY didn't get on with it, or cos it's from Halfrauds and therefore so badly made or badly put together it should break, I've still got a load of good mid-range components that I could transfer over to another "better" frame in the future.

For what its worth I picked up the Boardman team carbon roadbike on sunday and now fly to work with a big smile on my face, I think its fantastic………but time will tell and I've only got my P7 to compare it to, not very compareable really!

Ride quality is personal. Some people will say the Boardman rides flawlessly, some (most? whether fairly or not) will say the Spesh is better.

I would not hesistate to buy a hardtail or road bike from them, by all accounts they're very good, the road bikes have been designed properly by someone who should know what makes a good road bike. CB admits he's had nothing to do with the MTBs at all, they're chosen from a catalogue. Now you can't really screw up building a hardtail frame, I just wonder about the FS bike, you can do a lot of things wrong! But I've not ridden one, and would certainly do so before discounting one.

I have a far too expensive bike that is very bling (all the gear no idea etc), I've had a go of a boardman pro FS and was very impressed, pedaled nice and the kit was all a very good spec. Yes the suspeion desgin is off the peg, but they have chose a pretty good one. Okay its not as good as mine, but I'd **** hope not (and wouldn't admit it if it was, which it isn't). Don't see how you can go wrong with one. My only recommendation is take it straigh to a bike shop you respect (if you don't know what your doing) and have it set up again, properly, before you ride it.

Interesting to know that CB had no input in the FS design – I agree that there's a lot less to designing a HT frame, just chose your angles and lengths and away you go. The linkage they've chosen seems to be pretty commonplace, but I can imagine that small changes to the design and dimensions could have a dramatic effect on the way it behaves.

The difficult thing about taking one for a test-ride is finding one! There's none anywhere close to me in Halfrauds that I can try, it seems that they're only available to order.

I've got friends with Spesh, Trek, Turner, Ellsworth full bouncers but none with a Boardman. Unless there's anyone in the South-West who's got one and would be kind enough for me to have a spin?

I'm very much not a bike snob. However I think some people fail to realise how much investment the larger 'proper' companies put into their bikes…

09 stumpy comp

"chose your angles and lengths and away you go"

Really?

Butting, tube shaping and profiling, weld interfaces and methods, cable runs, bosses and angles, brake mounts chainsuck clearance, tyre clearance, seatpost BB and headset standards, vibration damping, flex, QC…

I would have thought the CAD and stress analysis work alone was extremely time-consuming.

Oh I forgot paint finish, badging and stickers.

Well obviously I was oversimplifying things when I said that!

My fundamental point was that although most of the items you mentioned have an impact on strength, weight and build options (and of course the costs of manufacture), they have very little to do with the handling characteristics of the bike. Yes, of course you can manufacture flex/give into a frame by manipulating the tube diameters/butting/x-section, but that has a much lesser impact on the handling than the geometry. For a steel HT then the parameters you mention are more important as you can make a frame feel different, but with an aluminium FS frame, you're (generally) just making the structures stiff so that you can isolate any movement to that which you design in with your linkage.

HT frames are still mostly built to the standard double-triangle design that I started riding back in the mid 80's, yeah the technology's evolved but the general design hasn't changed much. FS frames seem to change year on year with new linkages/pivot locations or fine tunings being released very frequently.

Good god, there's some snobs on here…

Didn't notice any snobbish comments myself Peter.
My own comments are nothing to do with bike brands (in fact, I believe I praise Spesh and Trek?), but concern Halfords. I honestly don't think they are deserving of customers who should know better (ie. knowledgeable cyclists).
Just my opinion (from experience, like).

Edit: Buy little stuff there, just not complete bikes.

The difficult thing about taking one for a test-ride is finding one! There's none anywhere close to me in Halfrauds that I can try, it seems that they're only available to order.

They won't let you try their bikes out – very frustrating and off-putting!! I was on the verge of spending £700 in my local store, some years back and couldn't believe I wasn't allowed to have a bimble round the car park. Walked to the nearby LBS, test rode a couple of bikes, and walked out with a brand new bike.

I do have a Boardman Pro HT now though – insurance reasons. It's easily the best bike I've ever ridden, after a few small adjustments / replacing bits and pieces. I've had it perhaps eight months and have given it a really hard time – no major problems yet….

why dont u go for HT,something like a cove handjob , or a ragley bluepig?.
u could spec one up for similar prices, u could get a full build from Merlin on line for just under 1200 quid at the mo (handjob)..
plenty of frame strength on that..

There was a Boardman FS in the shop of my local ex-BikeHut until last week, and to me it looked pretty sweet, and a bit of a steal for #1300. It's a four bar linkage the same as a Specialized – the pivot is on the chainstay – and the placement looks a bit similar to a Cotic. However, the only way to find out if it's as good as it looks is to test ride it, and compare it to other bikes, and something that has pivots in roughly the same place as another makers' bikes can and will ride completely different, unless everything is completely identical.

Seeing as this sounds like your first FS bike, you might want to try a few out before you buy – assuming you've not ridden friends' bikes already. There's plenty of choice and different designs *do* ride differently. I've made the mistake in the past of buying a bike that looked good on paper, and rode alright when I briefly tried it out, but which was a non-stop nightmare once I'd bought it.

As I said, the FS looks like a pretty well thought-out frame, and it's probably worth comparing the numbers with a few other bikes of the same ilk, but if you can't test ride one in the size you want, I'd walk away now, I'm afraid. That said, as has been said above, you could always sell the frame if you don't like it…

I'm very much not a bike snob. However I think some people fail to realise how much investment the larger 'proper' companies put into their bikes…

and yet if Ragley or On-One were doing a full sus with a spec as good as the Boardman, and a similar proven design a lot of people on here would be all over it

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/mountain/product/mtb-fs-pro-09-34684

well, they seem to like it….

I suspect you wouldn't get as good components but if you were pleased with your Specialized, you can get an 2010 FSR XC for similar money and there's probably loads of trail centres that will have these as demo/hire bikes as well as the Spesh Concept Stores.

At the moment I think my biggest hurdle is not being able to test it before stumping up the cash – Seen a few "last year" (09) model bikes coming up for sale quite discounted – something like a Trek Fuel EX7 for similar (less in fact) money, at least I'd be able to find one of them to test.

Maybe not quite such a good spec, but perhaps a more-thoroughly researched frame and suspension geometry that I could get better (consumable) parts on as the originals expire.

If you're after that sort of bike then why not buy my whyte E-120 XT for £1600 almost brand new ( see classifieds). If I was coming off a stumpy its the sort of bike I would want to ride – rewards fast aggressive riding which I'm not capable of anymore 🙁

Must say that a Boardman FS has crossed my mind too, they seem to 'work' and appear to be GVFM …………..so has the Halfrauds stigma. Would we all have rushed to buy On-Ones (I have 2) if Brant had done a deal with them? 🙄

Having read the Bike Radar review, I quite want one…

If you're after that sort of bike then why not buy my whyte E-120 XT for £1600 almost brand new ( see classifieds).

'Almost brand new' is still second hand, with no warranty, no after sales etc etc.