GT Avalanche 3.0 Disc 2009 - £300 - good deal?

daverey

All

In the market for a first decent MTB (following an £80 full suspension Apollo from Halfords....).

I've set mysefl and absolute max of £300 and just been to Evans Cycles - the guy there reckons he'll sell me a 2009 GT AValanche 3.0 Disc for £300 - he doesn't reckon I'll get anything better for this price.

Do we all agree with this? It looks OK to me, but I've no idea really.

I'm also after a bike for the missus - again, £300 maximum. Looking at the Specialized Myka HT Sport for £293 - again, does this look reasonable??

Ta in advance for any recommendations

Banned!

thats a decent bike at a good price, but you can get the 08 a bit cheaper at evans and its not that much of a difference.

its not a huge discount, but if you buy both bikes there you might be able to get a bigger one.

daverey

Thanks for this - I like the 2009 one I tried in the shop, but being new to this it's good to havea little reassurance.

I've checked out Evans' website and they do have the 2008 model for £40 less (although it says it's currently unavailable). I might ask them about it in the shop, but I was wondering, what is the difference between them - all the main components appear to be virtually the same on both versions?

Dave

Big Shoes

I have the Avalanche 3 and it is a great bike, got mine for £150 with uprated forks as it was a display model with a couple of light scratches.
If you can give Evans a ring, the Crawley store had an 2009 Avalanche 1 for £350 with a couple of light scratches on, which is an amazing buy.
Or the other option is Halfords, you can get a 2007/8 Carrera Fury for about £315, which is a far better bike with Tora U-Turn forks, Hydraulic Disk Brakes, better wheels etc.

daverey

Cheers for that.

Unfortunately my budget is strictly £300 (have to fork out for the missus to get a bike too, and she won't accept a lowr price one just so I can have a better one!), so the GT 1 is out of the question.

I'd also like to avoid Halfords wherever possible - my last effort was good value for money, but ultimately abysmal, and I can't stand the idea of parting with £300 to the muppets who built my old one (the seat came off on the way home....)

I'll see what they say in Evans tonight, but I might go for the Avalance 3.0 if they'll still do it for £300.

henry1500

Daveray could i ask which evans cycles branch offered it for £300? Im after that bike and the Birmingham branch dont seem to want to go down to £300!!!!!

Cheers

Hope you got your bike sorted

daverey

You can indeed - it was the Manchester store under the Chill Factor indoor ski-slope.

I have a feeling I might have got a better deal as I was also in with my missus who is looking for a new bike.

I actually went in to ask them about the GT Avalanche 3 non-disc version (on sale on the internet for £300). Whilst I was looking at this in store and chatting with the guy I noticed that they had put the price tag for the non-disc one on the disc version, and when he said the disc one was actually £340, I told him I wouldn't spend more than £300 and he offered it to me for this price (took very little - almost no - haggling from me).

In the end I didn't buy it that night, or a bike for the missus, and when I returned the same sales person wasn't around, so I said to one of the otehrs that I was offered the bike for £300 and they just put it through the till.

Incidentally I picked it up at the weekend and first impressions are that it is fantastic. Admittedly I've only got my old £80 full-suspension heap to comapre it to, but so far I am really pleased with it and I'd even go as far as to say that it even made climing uphill reasonably enjoyable, compared to my old cast-iron lump that used to almost give me a heart-attack.