how would you choose?

delcol

What would you fellow riders do

or that should be
how do you fellow riders choose a new bike??

would you go for looks the bike that looks better.
or spec the bike that has the better spec for the money. if it's slightly dearer.

The Rookie

Spec (as in spec suitable for my riding style/ability/usage) first, looks later.

felix.london

Use > Budget > Spec > Look

Use = XC, AM, FR, DH, DJ/4X etc

styxd

I never buy a complete bike. But I usually base my decision on use/function/geometry. Looks never come into it.

oodboo

Budget - Use - spec/look. I'm not too hung up on spec and I tend to buy the lower end model and upgrade to the spec I want over time as things wear out. I think the most important thing is to get the frame you want as this will last the longest.

mrmonkfinger

I would go

use -> budget -> spec -> look

as felix.london

.blitz

Decide on a budget then take 3-6 months looking around. Draw up a shortlist, make some enquiries re availability and two or three bubble up to the top. Go look at them and walk away from the ones I'm not 100% happy with.

Never ask the opinion of an owner everybody thinks their bike is the greatest.

felix.london

mrmonkfinger wrote:

I would go

use -> budget -> spec -> look

as felix.london

...but I'm striving to be more of a Use > Spec > Look > Budget kinda guy

(but keep spending any spare cash on upgrades so I doubt I'll ever make it)

hsiaolc

USE>Popularity (can't go wrong with it usually. More people buy it is because it is good)>Value>Looks

I never really care about the look. If paint work is really terrible I can strip it and paint it myself.

felix.london

Popularity? That's a risky game to play. Popular with who? On forums like these I guess you could do that, sort of..well not really as what's good for one person is not necessarily good for another

Popular with Joe Bloggs on the street? I'd say that's a big no, no. People buy some ridiculous crap and are talked into purchases buy useless staff from huge chains

andy_welch

Basically I try not to obsess about it. A bike is a tool to allow you to ride. I'm certainly not going to waste months trying to decide between options that, for all practical purposes are the same. At one extreme you could argue that any bike can be ridden anywhere (although some wont be much fun and others might break). At the other extreme you could argue that you need a different bike for every ride that you do as conditions always change. In practice they are all a compromise and there is no such thing as the ideal bike.

If I've decided that I want a new bike it will be because I want to do some riding that none of my current stable (currently numbering 5) are really suited to. So, I've already got a decent idea of what I want it to do. A bit of internet research and a look in local shops will give me a list of bikes that are generally considered to be suited to that sort of riding and are within my budget. I'll have a look to see if it's possible to test any of those, although I know from experience that test rides are of limited value (for me at least). When I can feel a difference between similar bikes (which often I can't) it's usually down to things that are easily changed (bars, stem, saddle, tyres, wheels etc). In practice, once I've got a shortlist I'm probably already at the stage where I could just pick one at random and be happy with it.

To help make the decision I'll usually bring in non-riding factors e.g. looks, where it was made, who is selling it, what support would be available etc. But the aim is to make a sensible decision quickly not to make the perfect choice (since I don't really believe that exists).

This strategy may have something to do with the fact that I have a varied stable of bikes to suit my needs. Currently that consists of summer road bike (i.e. light, stiff race oriented bike), winter road bike (a bit more relaxed with full mudguards and lower gears), a fixed/ss road bike, a Brompton and a full suss MTB. OK, on any given day on any given trail there may be an MTB that is slightly better suited to the ride than my Trance but as far as I'm concerned any decent MTB will let me ride places that I can't go on my road bikes and they'll all be slow on the road. So, I might as well just pick one and ride.

So, the sequence of events for choosing the Trance went like:

1. Decided I fancied doing some off-road riding (after years of purely road riding)
2. Borrowed my wife's 20 year old fully rigid steel MTB and hit a few local trails.
3. Decided that, yes, this was fun but my wife's bike didn't fit and was shaking me to bits
4. Visited a few local bike shops. The guy in the first shop listened to my needs and pointed me straight at a Trance. I wasn't keen (thought the curved down tube made it look like a girl's bike !!) but it was a starting point.
5. Did a bit of internet and magazine research and decided that what I wanted was probably a relatively short travel full-suss bike (although lots of hard tails would probably have been fine too).
6. Drew up a shortlist of Trance, Anthen 29er, Canyon XC and Boardman FS (based on geometry, weight and generally favourable reviews).
7. Rejected Canyon as I wanted to support a local shop. Rejected Boardman as I couldn't ride it and (from sitting on one in the shop) was worried that my heels may hit rear suspension.
8. Checked on availability of demo bikes and found that I could borrow a Trance that week.
9. Rode the Trance, loved it, realised that the LBS had a 15% off sale the following week so waited for that and bought it.

Would one of the other bikes (or one of the many that I rejected earlier) have suited me slightly better? Possibly. Do I care? No.

Cheers,

Andy

lawman

for me its use (travel/geometry/weight), budget, looks, spec.

I've only had one off the shelf mtb, as I'd just want to change too much on any off the shelf bike there is. custom builds allow you to build a bike up the way you want and its then yours and unique (well relatively). If we went with popular culture every brit would be on an orange 5 and frankly I'd rather give up mtb than own an orange 5!!

hsiaolc

felix.london wrote:

Popularity? That's a risky game to play. Popular with who? On forums like these I guess you could do that, sort of..well not really as what's good for one person is not necessarily good for another

Popular with Joe Bloggs on the street? I'd say that's a big no, no. People buy some ridiculous crap and are talked into purchases buy useless staff from huge chains

Of course popularity on forums like these. I look at here and MTBR and then make my decision from there.

Asking Joe Bloggs on the stree will not achieve anything.

IF a bike is rubbish it will be known here in the forums and no one will recommend it therefore not many will have it.

Because so many here have recommended Canyon and looking at them myself I am confident in buying it.

hsiaolc

lawman wrote:

for me its use (travel/geometry/weight), budget, looks, spec.

I've only had one off the shelf mtb, as I'd just want to change too much on any off the shelf bike there is. custom builds allow you to build a bike up the way you want and its then yours and unique (well relatively). If we went with popular culture every brit would be on an orange 5 and frankly I'd rather give up mtb than own an orange 5!!

I don't have an Orange either! Not and wasn't even on my to buy wish list.

delcol

probably should of provided more details..

it's afollow on from my transition canyon yt thread..

i after a new dh/park bike for whistler. i sold my demo thinking i would not be going back to whistler thi year and to get a little cash.. but a out of the blue oppurtunity came my way and i am now going to whistler so want a play bike..

i have it down to a few bikes the yt industries tues and the canyon torque frx..

hence my questio in this thread,, the yt looks better but is no wear near as good a spec as the canyon.

i to would normally spec my own bits but at this moment in time (unemployed bum) doing this is not possible i could never afford it.. i going to have to borrow the money to buy the yt or canyon...

bluechair84

I think I've only ever gone on price... I've been stung a few times, a Mongoose Teocali which was rubbish, a GT iDrive I wasn't keen on... but I've also got some cracking deals. The Moment cost me £350 with an RP2, a DHX5 and a titanium spring. I try to read reviews on bikes before I've bought them though.

milko9000

I think y'all are pretending to care less about looks than you really do, given all the cooing over pictures in the Your Mountain Bikes forum and similar build threads everywhere. Pretty bikes are nice! It's definitely a factor when I choose one. To my eyes (this is of course all subjective) the Orange 5 is such an ugly bike that it'd have to be amazingly good and amazingly well priced for me to consider it. Otherwise I'd rather ride anything else of similar spec/value instead.

That said, I could only use it as a way to rule out bikes I hate the look of and a decider in tight decisions, I'm not going to claim it's my top motivator.

delcol

thats just it Aaron i cant find many reviews on the canyon or the yt tues.. well ones i can read anyway (i struggle with my native language english) never mind a foreign one german...

it's a hard one as money is so tight right now and getting this bike is really really going to put preasure on but i want a decent play bike for whistler.. i really cant decide the tues looks way better but the torque is miles better specced..
maybe i should let the dice decide...

bluechair84

Are you looking to buy new? Why not go second hand to make most of your cash? If I were you id priorise price. Honestly, suspension all performs the same. Its down to the capabilities of the shock. And geometry can be fine tuned. Ofset bushes are very cheap. And the canyon might be the cheapest but it's a good bike.

1mancity2

Colin, out of the ones your looking at the Canyon is the best value off the shelf, but as you I never buy a bike like that but you have a great bike to start with and when your working again, which will happen (stay positive) you can tweak it.

Your a jammy dodger, getting to whistler again, were never gonna here the last of that (bloody bad enough now!)

felix.london

When I was going through this process it also came down to pretty much a toss up between a Torque FRX (Speedzone 6.0) and a Tues Downhill

The Tues Downhill getting into the Dirt100 is what tipped it for me.

Then I found a 'better' bike than both of them for less money So like bluechair says - why not go down the used route?

delcol

Your a jammy dodger, getting to whistler again, were never gonna here the last of that (bloody bad enough now!)

lol wait till i tell you how this trip has come about then this comment will be even more relevant...

i have considered second hand been looking at a used transition tr250 (ideally this would be the bike of choice if i still had my job) but then i came across the tue and torque and for the same moneyish as it would cost me to build up the tr250 i could get the tues or torque brandnew...
if i did go used i would not get anything older than a 2011 bike..