Dartmoor Hornet 2013 any good?

KevChallis

I am looking at used bikes, and came across this, as I am still fairly new, what does the spec look like, and what is the frame like?

Many Thanks

http://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/1510882/

The Rookie

The frames are well respected (Polish made), and get good reviews, although it is a hardcore hardtail and certainly not an XC machine it often gets rated poorly for XC use due to the riding position as I recall, what do you want to use it for?

KevChallis

mainly trail riding, bike park wales hopefully sometime this year, and other trail centres

The Rookie

I'd read up on some reviews and be sure the way the Hornet rides is the way you want your bike to ride or whether a more conventional trail hardtail would suite you better. The test I read (can't recall where right now) was a grouptest of trail hardtails with slightly longer than 120mm forks and in that test the Hornet didn't do well for the reasons mentioned above, also it's a heavy and stiff (read unforgiving) frame, more like an Orange MsIsle than a conventional HT.

KevChallis

Thanks for your replies I appreciate them, the other bike I was looking at, was this, as my Vulcan needs a fair amount doing to it, to get it to where I want it, I think it may be worth getting something like this ...

http://m.pinkbike.com/buysell/1506247/

A better bet?

The Rookie

Personally I'd rather spend that on sorting the Vulcan, you could have a very nice bike for that and ideally suited to what you want (see link in my sig to my Kraken framed bike, though for trail use I'd suggest 120mm forks).

rockmonkeysc

It says that one is sold now. The fork on it is really bad. Marzocchi's ATA forks were extremely unreliable and not that good on the odd occasion when they work.