Best Bike for Scottish Mountains

andy_welch

The output of the major manufacturers is naturally geared to the, much larger, US market and bike shops will naturally try to push whatever they are given as ideal for whatever you want to do. But I spent a few years riding round Southern Utah and have now spent a few months riding around Scottish mountains and they seem pretty different to me The UK market in general seems to be gearing itself more towards purpose built trail centres.

All of which leaves me to wonder "what is the best MTB for riding over Scottish mountains?". I'm talking natural trails and fairly long days involving at least 3,000 foot of climbing on anything from wide firm tracks to narrow, loose, paths and descents involving rocks, steps etc.

My initial bid to buy a bike for riding up here resulted in a Trance X2. I'd have to say that I'm pretty happy with that choice and not in any hurry to change, but I'd be interested to know whether people think there are any better options.

Cheers,

Andy

cooldad

A mountain bike.

chez_m356

cooldad wrote:

A mountain bike.

this , if there was one that was so much better than the rest, every one would be on the same bike and the other companies would be out of business

andy_welch

cooldad wrote:

A mountain bike.

Now why didn't I think of that

Fair enough, there is never going to be a "best" and there are plenty that will do the job, but a lot of what I see in the shops seems (to me) to be geared towards the sort of trails I used to ride in Utah. Long relatively smooth trails. Trail centres (in my admittedly limited experience) also seem to have lots of long swoopy bits interspersed with man made jumps etc. So I'm wondering whether bikes are being produced to satisfy this demand (which would only be natural) and whether there is a better choice for natural trails.

There may not be a best bike, but I bet there is a geometry that gives the best compromise for this sort of riding and I suspect that it's different to the geometry that gives the best compromise for trail centres etc.

Cheers,

Andy

symanoy

There is the 'British trail hardtail' which is pretty much exclusive to british companies such as Whyte, Genesis etc, putting 120mm forks on a hard tail with slacker angles and slightly tougher componentry which i think is far less common on US made bikes, this is the closest I think we have to UK specific bikes.

andy_welch

Thanks folks. I'm beginning to see the flaw in my own logic. Natural trails are naturally highly variable, so no bike will be ideal for all parts and any general purpose bike will probably do the job. Some interesting suggestions though and I notice that nobody suggested an Orange Five, which is interesting as I though that was supposed to be the definitive "made in Britain for British trails" bike.

Cheers,

Andy

ddraver

Trek Fuel EX9....

Having tried a few bikes out personally 5 years ago, but I never bought one...the Cotic was enough for me.

chez_m356

andy_welch wrote:

which is interesting as I though that was supposed to be the definitive "made in Britain for gullible people with large wallets and a somewhat misplaced notion of patriotism"

FTFY

ilovedirt

Depends what you want from the bike. Some people are happier on a racy XC bike that can get up the hills really easy but compromises on the downs, some people want something somewhere in the middle which is sort of jack of all trades (and of course master of none), some people (like myself) prefer a bigger bike that can be a slog on the climbs but rails the descents. It's all personal preference.

At the end of the day, 'XC', 'trail' and 'AM' bikes are all designed for the same sort of riding, they're just optimised for doing the same ride differently

tupcmx

As the number of options and is quite wide, the best bike for you is the one that allows you to make your travels in the most comfortable and help you achieve your goals.

Personally I prefer the XC because it makes me feel powerful to climb but are slightly frajiles on downhill and is a con, as he wrote ilovedirt

pilch

FS 29er - 100/120mm travel, lightish... climb great and excluding the 'extremes' perfect for the majority of UK trail centres/natural riding - IMO

andy_welch

pilch wrote:

FS 29er - 100/120mm travel, lightish... climb great and excluding the 'extremes' perfect for the majority of UK trail centres/natural riding - IMO

I tend to be in the "29ers are just a fad" camp at the moment, but I guess there is a certain logic to this suggestion. A lot of natural tail riding just involves riding over rough ground and a larger wheel should roll over this stuff easier than even a well set up suspension I guess. But all things being equal a smaller wheel should be stronger, which is quite an advantage when you are miles from anywhere.

Cheers

Andy