commuting and trails possibly down hill what bike????

goosebaby

I'm looking for a bike to go on trails but also to and from work and with misses in the town
I'd also quite like a bike that might also let me do a little bit of tame down hill riding can you get something that would do for this
I recently gave up semi professional paintball and have sold most of my gear so have between 4-6 hundred maybe a touch more

As I say I don't know anything about the sport so any help would be great and am I more likely to get a better deal on somewhere like here or eBay

Many thanks paul

cooldad

If you mean commuting and Downhill, no such bike. If you mean riding down some hills after you've ridden up plenty.
See the sticky at the top of the section.

rockmonkeysc

Semi pro paintball? Does that even exist and surely you are either pro or you're not.
No bike will be good on road and downhill, my downhill bike is aweful on road and that was 10 times your budget.
The best thing will be a budget cross country bike from Decathlon.

The Rookie

You get semi-pro footballers (so called boot money) so why not paint balling.....

Decathlon Rockrider 8.1 - £550

My Carrera is very similar in nature and copes just fine when the trail points down....

rockmonkeysc

It depends on your definition of downhill

felix.london

There's been so many threads with commuting and downhill in the title recently...what's going on??

They are literally the two polar opposites in the mountain biking world! There's obviously some bad information going around. A friend of a friend of mine who lives back in the UK said he'd bought a downhill bike and when he sent a photo it was a 100mm XC hardtail. Bizzare :?

rockmonkeysc

Just search ebay for downhill. You will find everything from carbon santa cruz v10's to rusty old argos specials.

goosebaby

Thanks for your advice guys I'm just looking into getting into mountain biking and literally don't know a thing at all lol I've been looking at a Scott mc genius with locking suspension not sure if any good though

I'm gonna start on tamer trails with misses and just was thinking I might be able to bike to work on it too but obviously not I've also looked at an orange ms isle


And about the paintball thing yeah semi pro
Were not pro cos we only had one or 2 sponsors the rest was subsidised by ourselves
Look up sup-air tournament paintball and you will see
My brother has just started up another team so if anyone is interested give me a shout lol

Many thanks paul

felix.london

Work and some 'tamer trails', yes. Harder trails and some downhill trails now and again, yes. Work & downhill trails, not really.

For your price range Decathlon's Rockrider 8.1 seems to be the go-to choice these days;

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-81-2012-mountain-bike-grey-id_8168918.html

You won't get a better spec for the money on a new bike (unless you find a specific sale deal somewhere else)

You can obviously get far more for your money going used but you need to know what your looking for (or not) or you could end up with a stinker

njee20

To my mind 'semi-pro' would be someone who gets their gear paid for, but isn't salaried. Can't see why there can't be semi-pro anything frankly!

scottfitz

How about an Inbred?
I would have it over the Decathlon.

http://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOO26INTR/ ... ntain_bike

felix.london

£800 with front suspension

goosebaby

felix.london wrote:

£800 with front suspension

What is ????

The Rookie

The Inbred linked to in the post above the comment (somethings are a bit obvious!)

£700 rigid or £790 with some absorbtion.

Puts the Decathlon ahead really...lighter frame, better drivetrain (X7 to X5), better brakes (E3 to E1), same fork and £140 cheaper

Not sure why Scottfitz prefers the inbred really!

thelonegroover

This does make the Inbred look expensive.

steve1200s

You can ride trails and a bit of 'downhill' on any mountain bike. The bike just helps you go faster and not have to get off and push over hard parts (putting it very basically).

Gary Fisher didn't need 200mm travel to enjoy hooning down hills.

scottfitz

£700 rigid or £790 with some absorbtion.
Didn't see this bit.

OP does it have to be new?
You can get alot of your money second hand.

rockmonkeysc

There is a big difference between riding down a hill and riding downhill.
Downhill involves big speed, big rocks, big roots and big jumps. The sort of riding that will just break anything other than a downhill or freeride bike and break the rider. Anything else is just riding down a hill on a bicycle.
Some of the proper downhill tracks like Rheola, Mynydd Du, Super Tavi, Egypt, and Fort William you can't just ride on any bike unless you leave the track to avoid the tough bits as you need to carry a lot of speed to get through them.

thelonegroover

Depends what goosebaby means by 'tame down hill riding'. Carrera or Boardman would also be fine.