Torn between bikes

danzmind

Hi all and hope you can help. I was a keen biker when I was a lad owning a diamond back ascent ex with deore lx and dx throughout. I loved that bike up until it got nicked and didn't bother after that. I am now rekindling that love and have a few bikes in mind. I have read reviews for the boardmans hts for under £800 which is my budget and these seem to get great reviews. The only bike on my list that there are no reviews anywhere is the claud butler cape wrath 05. Its rrp is over a grand but there are a few left for under £650. Its seems like a bargain and just wanted to know if anyone has had any experience of this bike or even the cape wrath 04. Please help or any other recommendations that you have. I don't mind if they're discontinued bikes so any good sales sites would be welcome. Thankyou.

danzmind

This is the link(I think).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0050I7 ... ecouk06-21
Sorry this seems like a long link. Im not very good at doing this on my phone.

Adotparker

Boardman all the way....... great value!! forget the 'halfords bike' image...... and you'll love it!

cooldad

Adotparker wrote:

Boardman all the way....... great value!! forget the 'halfords bike' image...... and you'll love it!

Adotparker wrote:

Rockrider....... Boardman is a 'halfords' bike....... Rockrider has brilliant build quality, good welding, and can be confuse with Specialized

You schizo?

waby1234

cooldad wrote:

Adotparker wrote:

Boardman all the way....... great value!! forget the 'halfords bike' image...... and you'll love it!

Adotparker wrote:

Rockrider....... Boardman is a 'halfords' bike....... Rockrider has brilliant build quality, good welding, and can be confuse with Specialized

You schizo?

Adotparker wrote:

hmmmmmm I just couldn't get the idea out of my head, that i'm riding a Halfords Bike........ :S

He sure is...

danzmind

Just to bring it back to my original query, I have read a lot of reviews on boardmans voo doo and carrera from halfords and also a shed load of other bikes all with customer and independant reviews. Just wanted to know about the cloud butler and if it is too good to be true at that price. Is it a crap frame etc. Any help welcome.

felix.london

cooldad wrote:

Adotparker wrote:

Boardman all the way....... great value!! forget the 'halfords bike' image...... and you'll love it!

Adotparker wrote:

Rockrider....... Boardman is a 'halfords' bike....... Rockrider has brilliant build quality, good welding, and can be confuse with Specialized

You schizo?

something tells me he hasn't ridden either...

danzmind

I guess that no-one has any experience of the cape wrath range. If anyone could have a quick look at the link above at the components and give a quick verdict vs price. That would be nice.

cooldad

Components look ok for the price, but the others mentioned have better.

danzmind

Thanks cooldad. Although surely slx/xt are higher up than sram x5 and the fork seems better? Same frame material although just been into a small local bike shop who stock c.butler, cannondale, trek, kona, specialized etc. He told me not to bother with butler or specialized as they don't make their own frames and branding is added to stock frames. He was definitely steering towards trek/cannondale. How much truth is in this as specialized always get good reviews. Who ever thought choosing a bike would be this confusing?

chez_m356

danzmind wrote:

Thanks cooldad. Although surely slx/xt are higher up than sram x5 and the fork seems better? Same frame material although just been into a small local bike shop who stock c.butler, cannondale, trek, kona, specialized etc. He told me not to bother with butler or specialized as they don't make their own frames and branding is added to stock frames. He was definitely steering towards trek/cannondale. How much truth is in this as specialized always get good reviews. Who ever thought choosing a bike would be this confusing?

are the trek and cannondales more expensive by any chance ? specialized frames are made by merida who own a percentage of specialized, so technically you could say they make their own, the truth is most brands have frames that have been made for them by someone else

felix.london

There's a £700-£900 Hardtail group test in this months (August I think) Mountain Biking UK

The Boardman Team & a KHS Alite came out top. But I think they were both knocking around the £900 mark so may be over budget

danzmind

Yes chez_m356, the amount of discount on the more expensive bikes was minimal due to the manufacturers setting the rrp....... Did sound a bit fishy hence me adding a post on here, where the true experts reside.