Bike advice for a born again MTB'er.

chris78cpr2

Hey guys and girls,

After a good 10 years away from riding i'm hitting that point in life where i have a bit of spare time and a bit of spare money that i can use for something usefull rather than just going to the pub! Therefore i'm looking at getting back into riding.

During my late teens i used to ride a lot of Jumps/Slaloms/Simple Downhill stuff and had a silly long travel hard tail and a vintage Kona Stab DH monster. Being a little older, a little wiser and a lot more sensible i'm looking at spending around £1200-£1500 to get myself a nice Full Suss'er to hit my local South Downs trails and maybe start going further afield.

For the first year or two i'm sure i won't be hitting anything longer than a 10/15 mile ride, no massive climbs and no crazy steep decents. Just some nice rides that go up, go down but mainly focus on fitness and enjoyment more than anything. I'm currently looking at the Trek Fuel range, the Canyon Nerve AL range and i also have the Rockriders in the back of my mind as a budget option.

What i'm looking for is some honest advice on a decent bike that doesn't weigh a ton, rides well and will last me a good length of time while i get back into the sport and see if i want to get into it seriously again.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Chris

joekerr

hi chris

buy a norco fluid 9.1 and a gps bike computer so you can upload rides to a site like strava .the bike is great as you will see when you google it . and the gps will get you so motivated , forget the 2 years before the main trails,youll be there in months

cant believe how light that bike is

have fun and good luck

chrisw333

I think you are very much on the right track with 120-130mm bike and Canyon & Trek Fuel are probably a good starting point.

The Canyon will almost certainly be better bang for your buck and well worth serious consideration.

You may also want to consider Boardman and maybe a Giant Trance, particularly if you can find an older model without the Overdrive 2 system (basically odd fork steerer size). Look at Pauls Cycles for bargains on older models.

chris78cpr2

joekerr wrote:

hi chris

buy a norco fluid 9.1 and a gps bike computer so you can upload rides to a site like strava .the bike is great as you will see when you google it . and the gps will get you so motivated , forget the 2 years before the main trails,youll be there in months

cant believe how light that bike is

have fun and good luck

The Norco Fluid looks like a good bike! Why would you reccomend it over the Canyon out of curiosity? Good thing they do a 650B version of it as i don't think i want a 29'er from what i've read.