Cannondale Trail SL3 Feminine 2010

climbingpixie

Hi, newbie here. Just started mountain biking and was planning to get a bike through the Cycle to Work scheme. I'm willing to spend up to £800 ish and the Cannondale seemed pretty nice but I can't find much about it online, reviews etc. I was wondering if anyone had used this model or had any experience with it, or could offer any advice on picking my first bike.

http://www.chevincycles.com/products.ph ... _::_Womens

P.S. I did have a look at blokes bikes but I'm short (5'1") with short legs and blokes frames don't seem to go any smaller than 14"

Cheers,

Julie

.blitz

The idea behind women's MTBs as you probably know is that women have shorter torsos than men for a given height. Cannondale tend to go overboard with this idea and produce feminine bikes with very short top tubes but if you are 5'1" you may be lucky and find you have enough leg room and can still comfortably reach the handlebars.

The SL3 has a great frame and a reasonable-ish spec but as with many recent Cannondales, the fork is almost regarded as a disposable item and in this case the RST fork lets down an otherwise fine machine.

The bottom line is that there are no bargains at any given price point. Sometimes you will get a great frame and fork but leaden wheels and bargain-basement components; sometimes you will get great components attached to a frame that is made out of recycled saucepans. It all comes down to which one feels right in the shop because although most people are adaptable to a certain extent, a bike that feels right from the start will be the one you will be happy with.

My advice is to visit your local bike shops and try out every bike that is within your budget. Ride around the car park or hire a bike for an hour or so. Make a nuisance of yourself

climbingpixie

Cheers for the advice, I'll go and look round a few more shops. Being short definitely has a lot of drawbacks when it comes to bike shopping - like that fact that none of the Orange bikes seem to come in anything smaller than a 15" frame :-(

supersonic

The RST Deuce is a good from what I hear.

I agree to try more out, including mens.

climbingpixie

Just an update - after hiring a Kona Fire Mountain at the weekend (and really liking the frame geometry on it) and visiting a few more bike shops I decided that women's specific wasn't actually quite right for me and that a 14" Kona Cinder Cone was pretty perfect. I'll be putting my Cycle Scheme application in this week and hopefully should have my new bike by the 12th May - woo!! Cheers for the help and advice, I'm sure I'll need it over the next few months while I find my feet with MTBing!