Pinnacle 4.0 vs Cannondale F5

arron7

Hi

I'm very much new to biking, and have been having a bit of nightmare in the past 3 weeks trying to determine what bike to purchase. With so many 2008 models on offer, you'd think there'd be a lot of options around but they all seem to disappear quickly from the shelves! Currently trying to weigh up the options between the Pinnacle 4.0 and the Cannondale F5, both of which are now retailing at £450 at Evans Cycles (apparently were £600 and £550 respectively). Loads of reviews on the Cannondale, but none on the Pinnacle 4.0. The Pinnacle 4.0 also has the Dart 3 shocks which seem to get mixed reviews. ...

Any help out there on this?? Should I be looking at sometihng else entirely??! It would be good to get impartial advice

Whatever bike I go with needs to be able to withstand a decent amount of off-road biking, though I guess most of this will be woodland/moorland trails - local to me are areas like the Forest of Dean, South Wales spots.

Thanks

supersonic

Both are pretty good for the money, but the Pinnacle edges the spec. The DART 3 is the pick of the darts as is better made with lighter magnesium lowers.

Can you try then out?

arron7

Thanks for the reply.

Yep, that was my inital thought - I was gonna head down tomorrow and do just that - though its in the city centre so I'm not sure how much of a feel I'm going to get for them in that environment.

I've been looking on other mtb forums to try and get a better apprecition of the Pinnacle, and it seems to get slated just because its an Evans own brand. Does this really matter? I know very little about Evans - does this imply an inferior build quality/set up?

MrChuck

I'd guess that Pinnacle are probably made in the same factories as lots of other big name brands and will have the same parts hanging off them so I wouldn't worry too much about quality. How it's all put together at the shop is luck of the draw really, but I wouldn't necessarily assume Evans are going to do it worse than the Cannondale dealer.

arron7

Well as it turned out, I didn't plump for either in the end! Couldn't road test the Cannondale, as there were none left in stock (nationwide) as of yesterday afternoon at the price I was looking to pay, whilst the road test of the Pinnacle wasn't too favourable. Though the ride was ok, it felt a little stiff, the brakes were incredibly noisy and didn't feel that effective, plus it sounded like there was a minor rattling somewhere near the front of the bike, possibly in the forks, (which may or may not have been a problem). To be fair to the store concerned, they did remove the bike from the shop floor when I voiced my concerns (a quick test of the brakes from them confirmed that there was a problem). I'm sure the bike is usually fine, but this was enough to put me off on this occasion.

So I road tested a Scott (Aspect?), Felt 630, and a Commencal Normal Disc 09 - the latter feeling super smooth and therefore was the one I went with in the end. MBuk rate the 08 model pretty highly in their dirty dozen listing, so hopefully the test + that review will pay off. Time will tell, will be taking it off road next weekend!

teacherman

Have a good one