new bike for XC and freeride

LuBikeRider

Hi there,

I am looking for a bike that can do XC and freeride. I looked at the Prophet 2 Cannondale, Marin Quad Trail 140 (Wolf Ridge) and Orange Patriot FR.

My budget range is £1500-2000. Do you know of any other bikes that might be suitable such as Santa Cruz , specialized, and others.

I have seen on most of these bikes they come with the Rox Shox Pike fork. I take having an air sprung fork is better than a coil one. I will probably upgrade the forks at a later time.

Thanks

Luke

guilliano

Spesh Pitch seems to be getting some great reviews, and the new Trek Remedy looks fantastic (will be borrowing my shop's demo one when it comes in)

BlackSpur

Air is not necessarily better than coil - air is lighter and mone tuneable but coil had plusher travel.

Steve_b77

Yup the pitch is awesome as far as I can tell anyway

Biggest drop I've managed is about 2.5ft and it coped just fine, I'm more than confident it'll take more when my kahoonas are up to it

Mine has a coil sprung Pike on it and I can't see any issues at all other than mega fine adjustments for your weight etc.

FAT_ROB

I went for the Pitch as well Frankly its awsome and well well worth a test ride

I would suggest making sure you go for the Pro, the RP2 shock alone is worth the extra cost as it makes climbing a hell of a lot more 'enjoyable' and thus makes the bike a great all rounder,

I would echo the sentiments above re the coil fork, yeah in a perfect world I would go for a air fork but thats a nice upgrade for a later day.

In summary the bike is ready to go right form the box, like any bike in this price range there is load of scope to upgrade and improve the basic package.

The natty brown grips even grow on you after a while....

ride_whenever

I'd say the quad trail. also look at the meta 5.5

grantway

I have just started riding the Orange 5 AM

Dont know your style of riding but looking at your list above bikes
Bit of a mis mash the Prophet is a good bike the Orange is much heavier
bike.

Have you tried the Orange 5 ? much lighter but also a very good frame.

I dont know how tall are you as Leisure Lakes in Bury have a
06 Orange 5 S model this is a 16 inch frame with upgrades for
£ 1,349.00p All so going to the Orange Patriot JE James have a
Patriot Medium frame 06 Model for £ 1,799.00p which was £ 2,699.00p.

Let us know how you get on.

LuBikeRider

My height is about 5 ft 6" so I would probably take about a medium frame size. unless someone recommends for a smaller frame

Chaka Ping

Giant Reign could be another option.

Very good value.

grantway

I think you will come between two sizes the Small and the Medium

I did see on bike magic web site there was an Orange 5 06 pro going for £ 900.00p

Just a great bike go and get your leg over it

edvardo

im in same position, loads to chose from. im 37, been riding my whole life, getting back into it after 2yrs away (injury) my buying decision over the past 2 months has followed this route:

deciding to give away my lovely 1999 Zaskar with psylo SLs to a mate (couldnt sell it on ebay for a few quid, i wanted it to go to a good home), buy a kona dawg delux (turns out while its great on the page its horrible in the flesh), then specialized pitch pro (initial choice, but compromise mid level spec, better off with a hardcore hardtail for same price), then briefly looked at specialized enduro comp (bit more money but too bulky with double crown fork and boring being specialized, id look a tit riding it), as a reaction against expensive boring major label sussers looked at On-one inbred singlespeed with carbon fork (too far the wrong way) then Cove Stiffee custom build (at 2 grand, beautiful, and very nearly stopped here.... but for that price it made me relook at full sussers again) then bumped into the new marin 140mms which id skipped over before. Amazin, and my bro has had his east peak (which im not mad on but...) for years, great quality frame, i rode it today, still lush.. im sure this is best route for me from my kickass Zaskar to full susser. i'm now very very close to buying the wolf ridge. its taken me a long time to come to this point, and im now addicted to bike porn again... hope this helps you decide...