Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
im glad my prostrate came away in tact
Is this a cycling term or do you mean prostate? If you do, please, please don’t tell us you have photos of it happening!
im glad my prostrate came away in tact
Canyon. Wont get more for your money. Well regarded and will see them on basic family singletracks to gnarly Black route downhills.
https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/
Needs to be full suspension these days, preferable with lockout for the long road climbs - most come with lockout now. Why you wouldnt be interested in full suspension I dont know? Thats like buying a car with only the front shockers working! Gone are the days of wallowly rear suspension, unless its a Voodoo.
1K is around entry level, but should get you a fairly decent Canyon. I'd probably go with 27.5" rims, 29's are like wagon wheels and a bitch getting up steep technical climbs, and around 140mm travel geometry, you could try 120mm for more cross country type cycling, but the 140 is nice to have once you hit some flowing downhills. I would avoid 1 x10 gearing for what you need it for, opt for 2x10, 1 x 10 is great but unless you are a hardcore MTB'er, the 2x10 is just more versatile.
With cheap end bikes or budget bikes from big manufacturers, you get a lot less for your money and the weight of the bike is frustrating, its why I like Canyon , I will have a Canyon as my next bike (current is a Commencal Meta AM although havent been able to ride for a while sadly)
Not sure if you looked at the Scott bike farfromthesun mentioned in post2 but it's also on sale at hargroves, and is black, at least under the lime branding anyway...
https://www.hargrovescycles.co.uk/scott-scale-980-2018-mountain-bike.html
Needs to be full suspension these days, preferable with lockout for the long road climbs - most come with lockout now. Why you wouldnt be interested in full suspension I dont know? Thats like buying a car with only the front shockers working! Gone are the days of wallowly rear suspension, unless its a Voodoo.
The one mentioned in the post above yours is XL only. Maybe the exception that proves the rule?
Not at all, it's a great colour. I rebuilt a bike, it had been boring black, it's now ASBO orange. Great colour. I'm going to do another one day, I want Kawasaki Green, black moving parts. Or brighter still. Grey is for battleships.that colour is indeed horrendous. what were they thinking?
Not at all, it's a great colour. I rebuilt a bike, it had been boring black, it's now ASBO orange. Great colour. I'm going to do another one day, I want Kawasaki Green. Grey is for battleships.
I was also quite tempted by the 'Cube' hardtails when I was last in the market, and they still seem well spec'd for the money imo.
I've had a Cube hardtail for the last 5-6 years. but ne'er a brake pad nor chain required as yet.
Right. I go through a set of front pads once a year.You can't possibly have ridden it much if it has needed new pads yet.
Yeah, that was supposed to read "if it hasn't needed new pads yet". There's nothing special about the disc brakes on a Cube. You can go through the front pads in a couple of weeks of gritty downhilling, or a bike can be sat around doing nothing for years and the pads won't have worn at all. They're just a few mm thick. I also tend to go through a pair of front pads in a year.
I would agree. Hardtails are for the serious, skilled racers who worry about resting heart rates and are not ashamed to wear lycra in public. For normal recreational riders a FS bike is in my experience the better trail bike choice hands down. It will be more efficient (improved traction will make more difference than weight), more comfortable and by order of magnitude more fun.
It will also open up a lot more trails. We are not talking about full on downhill here but flow trials, berms, a little bit of air and some minor technical sections. You can for sure ride all those awesome maintained forestry commission and bike park trails on a hardtail but it will be miserable as f**k unless you are 24, have 1% body fat, drink red bull and don't plan on using your knees in later life
The one caveat is I have no clue about budget and it might be that £1000 a FS bike is so compromised that a hardtail is indeed the better option.
And I say all this as someone who was a committed hardtail fan as I mostly rode street, park and dirt in the later years of my bike riding. But I look at what people get to do now on MTBs and think back to my days yomping up random bridleways, dodging sheep and cow pats and think "what on earth was I thinking?".
However, note that I am down with the kids and YMMV for the more middle aged amongst us
Chronicals,
Read the OP's posts. He's not a budding dh racer or 100 mile per week singletrack blaster!