Newbie hardtail advice

welshwonder001

Hi all I'm after a bit of advice been looking at getting my first hardtail mountain bike I've been looking at a few over the last month I'm after a bike with 29" wheels as 80% of the time it will be used on roads an canals the rest of the time on mountains an trails my budget is around the £450 mark I want a bike that will last me a gd few years I'm quite keen on this 1
http://www.orbea.com/gb-en/bicycles/mx-40/
What do you guys think or any other bike options u recommend I also like the boardman team 29
Any advice much appreciated cheers

brianbee

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19751228#p19751228]welshwonder001[/url] wrote:

Hi all I'm after a bit of advice been looking at getting my first hardtail mountain bike I've been looking at a few over the last month I'm after a bike with 29" wheels as 80% of the time it will be used on roads an canals the rest of the time on mountains an trails my budget is around the £450 mark I want a bike that will last me a gd few years I'm quite keen on this 1
http://www.orbea.com/gb-en/bicycles/mx-40/
What do you guys think or any other bike options u recommend I also like the boardman team 29
Any advice much appreciated cheers

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, It has dreadful forks on it, which might be forgivable if it was 250 quid, but not acceptable 400 quid even for you intended light use

29ers do seem to be a bit dearer, but Im not sure why you think it necessary for use on canals paths. So you choice would seem to be, buy one with smaller wheels, but a lot better spec, or stump up more money and get a 29er with decent( better) forks. NB its difficult to find a worse fork

kajjal

Voodoo bizango sounds your best bet. Second hand well within your budget.

cooldad

Not quite true. It's not worth the money, but the fork does have hydraulic damping. The XCM with mechanical, ie no damping, is a lot worse.

I suggest paging through the buying advice section for regular similar topics, where you'll find the usual suspects from Decathlon, Go Outdoors and Halfords.

Plenty of better bikes in the pricerange. Specifically look at the Calibre 2.2 from Go Outdoors.

I wouldn't get hung up about wheel size.

ps. Edited to add I was referring to brianbee's post.

The Rookie

Agreed, the XCT with hydraulics is a massive improvement over the non damped clanky old ones.

You could get last years Voodoo Marasa and fit an Epicon for £350!

Or this http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-560-mountain-bike-275-id_8336092.html#anchor_ComponentProductTechnicalInformation is much better for not much more.

wmorgs

A little shameless bump as i can see a fellow welsh user :oops:
Boardman Pro 29" Meduim.
Delete if this is not allowed:

viewtopic.php?f=40089&t=13038983

Thanks - Wayne

welshwonder001

Cheers the info guys much appreciated wmorgs I've just sent u a pm