Crazy ebay prices !!!!

p9mes

I'm a committed roadie but want to get a MTB to go off road with girly.

So looking at boggo standard entry MTB (the ubiquitous Hardrock) you can get a new 2013 HR Disc 29er for £400 but a used HR (some disc some not) seem to go for up to £200 (and you can get a new HR non disc new for £270 - 2013)

So I would normally buy used (apart from Carbon) but what am I missing? £400 for a disc 29er seems a bargain at only a couple of hundred less than a used non disc.

What else should I look for/at as a MTB novice? Don't care about FSR etc as its only easy trails and my legs can compensate for a heavier bike

Cheers
Mike

cooldad

Older models tend to have better spec.
But better known makes tend to keep their value because people think they are good because of the name, even if the particular model is rubbish.
Hardrocks tend to be rubbish.

rockmonkeysc

Hardrocks are terrible. £200 would be about right new for the particulary nasty components.

kajjal

HardRocks were good value a few years back but currently Specialized seem to be doing a Tesco impersonation, charging premium prices for non premium goods in many cases. They are not alone in doing this amongst the bigger manufacturers.

Second hand you can get a virtually brand new Specialized Rockhopper much cheaper. Also the Rockhoppers with M4 frames are cheap secondhand as well. The same is true of other brands just take you time and look for a good deal.

passout

Look towards Decathalon if buying new. If sticking to ebay the prices vary a great deal but worth a look.

Kowalski675

p9mes wrote:

I'm a committed roadie but want to get a MTB to go off road with girly.

That sounds rather unlikely.

The Rookie

Carreras (Vulcan/Kraken/Fury) are better bikes than a Lardrock and are usually cheaper used and common enough to have a chance of finding one.

jimothy78

All this "such-and-such" is a good bike, "so-and-so" is a bad one, is pretty unhelpful IMO.

If you're looking at secondhand bikes then you can't be so simplistic in your approach. A bike's "worth" is (or at least should be) determined by the sum of it's parts, not the name on the frame.

I have two bikes that both bear the Hardrock name, but neither bears any resemblance to the original build. One of them is a budget build for my wife, who only uses it to pootle along the local cyclepaths, the other is my XC/trail bike, kitted out with Revelations, Shimano m596 brakes, XT/SLX gearing and a Hope pro II/ WTB AM wheelset.

I'd be seriously annoyed if someone wrote-off the latter bike just because it was a "Lardrock" :roll:

ej2320

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Hardrocks are terrible. £200 would be about right new for the particulary nasty components.

I wouldn't say they're terrible..
My first 'proper' mountain bike was a 2011 hardrock sport disc for which I paid £370 new
Agreed it probably wasn't the very best spec I could have got for my money but it got me into mtb and did everything I wanted as a complete novice

Plus I sold it a year later for £330

ej2320

Also have a quick scroll through the Pinkbike Buy/Sell
There can be some decent prices on here http://m.pinkbike.com/buysell/1537089/
http://m.pinkbike.com/buysell/1493547/

The Rookie

jimothy78 wrote:

All this "such-and-such" is a good bike, "so-and-so" is a bad one, is pretty unhelpful IMO.

If you're looking at secondhand bikes then you can't be so simplistic in your approach. A bike's "worth" is (or at least should be) determined by the sum of it's parts, not the name on the frame.

I have two bikes that both bear the Hardrock name, but neither bears any resemblance to the original build. One of them is a budget build for my wife, who only uses it to pootle along the local cyclepaths, the other is my XC/trail bike, kitted out with Revelations, Shimano m596 brakes, XT/SLX gearing and a Hope pro II/ WTB AM wheelset.

I'd be seriously annoyed if someone wrote-off the latter bike just because it was a "Lardrock" :roll:

That's because the vast majority of used bikes are bone stock, yours isn't a lardrock, its a bike based around a Hardrock frame as you said. Hardrock frame is still as heavy as hell though, size for size about 20% heavier than my Carrera frame (and my Carrera bears no resemblance to the original either).