Buying a new full suspension 29er budget £1650 help!

Mooglbit

I'm about to purchase a new full suspension bike, would like a 29er, I've a budget of about £1650 max, I've been looking through the sales at evan's, chain reaction etc. and I've no idea what the best buy is! I've been using my friends orange five recently, and I'm hooked on that thing, unfortunately my budget can'tnstretch that far, but something with a similar ride to that is what I'm after..

Any help would be so appreciated!

mcnultycop

A 29er FS won't ride like your mate's Orange 5. 5's are seen as an acquired taste by many on here; I've never ridden one so can't comment. If you are ok buying direct, I'd look at this http://www.canyon.com/_en/mountainbikes ... tml?b=3035

Clank

For full sus 29ers, well within your budget, try here:

Pauls Cycles

Mooglbit

mcnultycop wrote:

A 29er FS won't ride like your mate's Orange 5. 5's are seen as an acquired taste by many on here; I've never ridden one so can't comment. If you are ok buying direct, I'd look at this http://www.canyon.com/_en/mountainbikes ... tml?b=3035

The Canyons seem like great bikes with good spec. Do you know how they compare to bikes that are currently on sale?

Mooglbit

For a 26" this is a bit out of my budget but very tempting.. any thoughts?

CANNONDALE JEKYLL 3
http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/products.p ... 1b0s1p4347

nferrar

You need to demo some to get an idea of what works for you, the bike with the biggest discount on it is rarely the best choice. This month's MBR has reviews of a few FS 29ers at the £2k mark (but they each have cheaper options in the range so some should at least be in your budget). I demo'd the Trance 29er (same £2k model as in MBR) a couple of weeks back and agree with their conclusions (which is a shame as combining the Trance with 29" wheels is in theory a great combination).

rockmonkeysc

Heavily discounted bikes are usually the ones shops can't shift and they usually can't get rid of them for a good reason.

andy_welch

If you like your mates Five so much, why are you looking for a FS 29er ?

I've got an older Five (built with bits from ebay, classified etc for less than your budget), which I love. I've also had extended demo rides on a few 29ers, which were both fine bikes, but nothing like the Five. I've also got a 26" Giant Trance. That doesn't feel quite like the Five either, but it's a lot closer than any of the 29ers I've tried.

It might be worth trying to pinpoint what you liked about the Five then trying to find a bike that will give you a similar feel. I know it's not easy though. In theory I'm going to sell either the Five or the Trance as I don't need both. But despite riding them both for months I still can't decide which I prefer :oops:

The Rookie

So you like the Orange5 and then are looking for an FS29er which is about as far from being a similar bike as you can get..... as stated you need to decide what you want (bike wise, if not at least characteristic wise) and then go from there!

70\ʹspenguin

Oops wrong bike