First bike in 10 years, help me choose the right one please

DayTripper90

Hi guys just looking for abit of advice or suggestions on a hybrid bike to buy, budget is around £500-£600 will be for commuting to work, and suitable to ride on tarmac as well as light trail paths and bridleways or similar when just going out for a general ride, I haven't had a bike for at least 10 years so much has changed since then I'd imagine

I've heard good things and have test ridden a friends Pinnacle lithium 4 2014 which seemed decent and have seen a few decent reviews dotted about for evans own brand pinnacle, they still have in stock the pinnacle lithium 2014 frame size medium at £495 however I was contemplating getting the newer 2015 model however the colour just screams steal me, and picking up a set of better tyres for road and trail use any suggestions for that also would be great, is it worth saving £50 and going for the older model or does the new one have much better components? or do you have any recommendations for any other similar bikes that might be worth a look

also I've been looking at mainly rigid fork or would it better to buy a lock out front suspension like the specialized crosstrail as I will be using it on trails aswell as road use?

Cheers for any help

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/pin ... e-ec054696
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/pin ... e-ec071282

Initialised

You only really need a suspension fork for rough trails, although they help immensely if you like taking detours and shortcuts.

Both of those bikes seem like rigid mountain bikes rather than true hybrids.

If you are going to mainly ride roads have you considered a road bike (or CycloCross) or are you put off by the curvy bars? These are perfectly fine for off road use outside of really rough trails and MTB parks. Yes I have tried, some of the off-road routes through the Pennines proved a little too much for my bike on 23mm tyres. The main thing you lose at your price point on a road bike is disc brakes, hybrids will come with basic hydraulic or decent cable disc brakes but staying under £600 will be difficult for a road bike.

Having said that this is a bargain if you can fit a large frame:

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/pin ... --ec075918

and this isn't bad if you need a small:

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/pin ... --ec075921

If you are after a flat bar hybrid this is a decent option in medium:

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/spe ... --ec075925

It comes with good tyres (I liked them in the wet and off road, they lasted well and had good puncture resistance), road gearing. The brakes are good, (I have them on an MTB).

supersonic

Unfortunately most 'hybrid' bikes come with really poor suspension units. If a more rugged type of bike is what you want, then a full on MTB is often the best bet, as is the most versatile type of bike anyway.

This is a superb buy:

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m1b67s2p4685/CUBE-LTD-2013