Which Bike for 700(ish) pounds?

All-the-gear-no-idea

Hi all,

New to the forum so bravely jumping into my opening subject of, "what MTB for a budget of 700 (ish) pounds?".

I have narrowed it down to 2, based on frame (upgrade potential for the future), fork, brakes etc

Whtye 801:

http://www.whytebikes.com/2012/bike_pag ... W-1-023-12

Cannondale Trail SL3
http://www.cannondale.com/gbr/catalog/p ... tegory/506

This bike is going to be used for part of my commute run and some XC/Trail (nothing too exciting...well, not at the moment anyway ).

Any help or advice would be great!

supersonic

Bad frames don't exist at this price point. That said the Cannondale has a 1.5 headtube which has some merit if you want to upgrade to a fork with a tapered steerer.

And it has the best fork here - forks make or break bikes at this price, and Whyte have fit a pretty basic, bottom of the range unit to their bike. The rest of the specs are pretty similar.

Are these from local dealers, can you try them for size?

All-the-gear-no-idea

Thanks for the quick response! Yeah, both are at local dealers which I have viewed and had a test drive, both to be honest felt good. When looking into the forks I found some info on the RS but nothing on the RST Deuce.

supersonic

RST don't have an after market importer in the UK, but are a big company and produce forks for a variety of people, and at all price points. The Deuce is a good fork, if a little heavy.

What else does your dealer stock?

All-the-gear-no-idea

The dealer that stocks the Whyte also has Cube, Specialized, Marin, Trek. The Marin Bobcat Trail 2012 was within my price range but many of the afore mentioned bike companies left my budget in the dust! The dealer where I saw the Cannondale SL3 was really the only one in my price range, unless I looked at the SL4 but I felt that was a step back on spec.

supersonic

For just over £700 is the Cube Acid - sports a nice air fork, Dynasis 30 speed transmission, decent brakes and some nice kit. Well worth considering.

All-the-gear-no-idea

Thanks! I see they do a 29er version of the Acid and I take it that's the 2012 model? The RS recon has 100mm travel, if I needed to could that frame accept a fork with longer travel?

supersonic

Yep, was looking at the 2012 26er ie normal. Longest travel you can fit is 120mm I believe.

All-the-gear-no-idea

Thanks for the help on this! your a star, even if you have now added a third option! I will go and have a look at the cube, looks nice from the pictures.

danlikesbikes

General rule of thumb is try as many as you can first - as each make/model will feel different to you than it does for me.

Plus you need to think what you want the bike to do for you and the types of riding your going to be doing - but just so you know the all 3 are pretty good bikes you are looking at.

All-the-gear-no-idea

Thanks for that and I completely agree. I've tried the others but not the Cube which will be interesting as the RS recon (was negatively reviewed with the Dart) seems to be a better fork then the other 2 bikes.

hills_mtb

i know it's not the exact bike that you are looking for but I am selling my RZ 120 £650 if you were interested.
http://s1154.photobucket.com/albums/p525/chris2k15/

Coolnick

How about this, bought one myself and love it www.boardmanbikes.com/mtb/ht_comp.html

NJG01

+1 (or + many if you would like) for the Cannondale SL3. I ride one myself, have only changed the pedals for a pair of flats so far because I dont feel confident in the cage pedals. Absolutely love the bike, has handled everything ive done and taken quite a few knocks due to my own clumsiness (eg. falling off a 1m high boardwalk on to a tree stump was a funny moment. I landed in the boggy stream next to the stump but the bike hit it fairly hard and its still going strong, no dents... Only a few scratches here and there from offs / stone chips / cable rub / chain slap.)

It also climbs well, its not the lightest bike out there but I just sit there and crank away and be up the hill with not much trouble. Ive also done upward of 60 miles in a day on it, got a nights sleep then rode a further 40 the next day (up and down primarily) and finished off with a third day of about 50 miles (C2C)... About 80% of this was road riding, done on the stock tires which dont roll as easily as some tires but would be fine for commuting.

According to my LBS (and this agrees with what Supersonic said earlier) the frame of the SL3 has quite a bit of upgrade potential - just replace things with better as they wear out.

** Edit: just so that that wall of text doesnt make it look like the bike is the worlds greatest invention, I have had to have the brake pads changed because I let trail muck accumulate on the discs then I cooked the brakes on a long smooth fireroad descent with sharp, blind corners with lots of very slippery gravel so was braking quite a bit. :roll:

I also had to have the fork repaired because within about 3 months, the lockout cartridge had compeletly collapsed, but the LBS said they had never seen anything like it with any fork. And before anyone starts pointing fingers, I ride with the fork unlocked most of the time and am very careful that I unlock it after all climbs where it was deemed nessecary to lock it. Luckily, the replacement cartridge was covered by the warranty but apparently it came with a letter from RST saying that they hadnt had anyone else returning collapsed locking cartridges... So it appears mine was a fluke case.

EH_Rob

+1 for SL3, I've got one too and love it, although I changed the forks due to their weight. It's a capable bike, although a little underspecced compared with the Boardman and Cube.

Having said that it's worth trying as many bikes as you can.