New Boardman FS.....what's the catch??

JGTR

Just looking at the new Boardman FS....seems an awful lot of bike for the money, what's the catch???

For that price - £1500 - worthwhile selling my current bike and buying a Boardman rather than upgrading my current bike

codfather

The badge.
Brand snobbery has a lot to do with the price of bikes. Spec up a "boutique" brand trail bike to that level (Pike, 1x11, Guides etc) and you're looking at twice that number. Though it may or may not be worth considerably more than they are asking for it, people who spend that sort of money on bikes often don't want to be associated with Boardman or Halfords, regardless of whether or not they're any good (they often are). Same story with the Calibre Bossnut; silly name, but it does everything any Spesh/Trek/Giant/Whatever does, but it's from Go Outdoors, so the price has to stay low.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

jamski

Codfather wrote:

The badge.
Brand snobbery has a lot to do with the price of bikes. Spec up a "boutique" brand trail bike to that level (Pike, 1x11, Guides etc) and you're looking at twice that number. Though it may or may not be worth considerably more than they are asking for it, people who spend that sort of money on bikes often don't want to be associated with Boardman or Halfords, regardless of whether or not they're any good (they often are). Same story with the Calibre Bossnut; silly name, but it does everything any Spesh/Trek/Giant/Whatever does, but it's from Go Outdoors, so the price has to stay low.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

Definitely one reason, but I think the likes of Calibre producing such a good, cheap FS is generally bringing prices down too. Someone posted a Giant on here yesterday at about £1200, there's another brand which escapes me too making another steal of a FS.

Hoping this time next year I'll be looking into this market, and with the previous years models still around you can pick up an absolute bargain!

codfather

jamski wrote:

Codfather wrote:

The badge.
Brand snobbery has a lot to do with the price of bikes. Spec up a "boutique" brand trail bike to that level (Pike, 1x11, Guides etc) and you're looking at twice that number. Though it may or may not be worth considerably more than they are asking for it, people who spend that sort of money on bikes often don't want to be associated with Boardman or Halfords, regardless of whether or not they're any good (they often are). Same story with the Calibre Bossnut; silly name, but it does everything any Spesh/Trek/Giant/Whatever does, but it's from Go Outdoors, so the price has to stay low.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

Definitely one reason, but I think the likes of Calibre producing such a good, cheap FS is generally bringing prices down too. Someone posted a Giant on here yesterday at about £1200, there's another brand which escapes me too making another steal of a FS.

Hoping this time next year I'll be looking into this market, and with the previous years models still around you can pick up an absolute bargain!

Prices are not generally going down. They are generally going up. But yes, there is more competition at the lower price points, pushing the bottom end prices down.

The Giant in question IIRC was last year's model in a sale, so not comparable. Give it until this time next year and the prices of the BMs will fall too, that's how model years work.

For instance, the VooDoo Maji, a WSD FS is currently on sale at £650, with a further £60 off in the confusingly titled "spend and save". Whether or not you can apply the BC 10% discount or not I don't know, but that's a full suss bike, albeit not well equipped on the whole, for £590. Giant ask £999 for the comparable Stance, discounted but £100 or so occasionally. Odd that they claim the Stance to be Unisex when they have their own WSD brand, but I digress. There was a point in there somewhere...

jamski

Codfather wrote:

jamski wrote:

Codfather wrote:

The badge.
Brand snobbery has a lot to do with the price of bikes. Spec up a "boutique" brand trail bike to that level (Pike, 1x11, Guides etc) and you're looking at twice that number. Though it may or may not be worth considerably more than they are asking for it, people who spend that sort of money on bikes often don't want to be associated with Boardman or Halfords, regardless of whether or not they're any good (they often are). Same story with the Calibre Bossnut; silly name, but it does everything any Spesh/Trek/Giant/Whatever does, but it's from Go Outdoors, so the price has to stay low.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

Definitely one reason, but I think the likes of Calibre producing such a good, cheap FS is generally bringing prices down too. Someone posted a Giant on here yesterday at about £1200, there's another brand which escapes me too making another steal of a FS.

Hoping this time next year I'll be looking into this market, and with the previous years models still around you can pick up an absolute bargain!

Prices are not generally going down. They are generally going up. But yes, there is more competition at the lower price points, pushing the bottom end prices down.

The Giant in question IIRC was last year's model in a sale, so not comparable. Give it until this time next year and the prices of the BMs will fall too, that's how model years work.

For instance, the VooDoo Maji, a WSD FS is currently on sale at £650, with a further £60 off in the confusingly titled "spend and save". Whether or not you can apply the BC 10% discount or not I don't know, but that's a full suss bike, albeit not well equipped on the whole, for £590. Giant ask £999 for the comparable Stance, discounted but £100 or so occasionally. Odd that they claim the Stance to be Unisex when they have their own WSD brand, but I digress. There was a point in there somewhere...

So at the price point in question the competition is driving prices down, give or take, we agree. And get your point about sale prices. In a nutshell they're great value.

trek_dan

Be interesting to see how heavy it is and how the rear suspension design performs. Pikes and 1x11 for £1500 is pretty awesome.

poah

Codfather wrote:

The badge.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

no, its just not "fashionable"

codfather

POAH wrote:

Codfather wrote:

The badge.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

no, its just not "fashionable"

The two are not mutually exclusive.

swod1

trek_dan wrote:

Be interesting to see how heavy it is and how the rear suspension design performs. Pikes and 1x11 for £1500 is pretty awesome.

And SRAM 4 piston brakes too.

It will certainly get some people interested, I've just seen bike radars email and thought it was a miss print and the fork wasn't really a pike but a rockshox yari or something else.

I'm gonna give it a look as after a light-medium trail bike and this could fit the bill n save me some cash.

bob6397

POAH wrote:

Codfather wrote:

The badge.

Those wheels would have to go though, 19mm internal width is a daft choice

no, its just not "fashionable"

I have the 26" of those rims on my Boardman HT and they do struggle to support wider tyres at lower pressures.. Often I have to run at 28-32 psi instead of 22-25 that i would prefer to run as my 2.35" winter tyres go all wobbly underneath me..

19mm is quite narrow for far tyres. any 2.1" tyres I have run have been fine though so it must be the rim width.

Back to the bike, the only thing I can see missing is a dropper post.. but for £1500, I reckon that's understandable.. I am seriously tempted by one of these..

bob6397

rockmonkeysc

It's not quite my sort of bike but for a xc/trail bike it looks like it will be hard to beat.

poah

bob6397 wrote:

I have the 26" of those rims on my Boardman HT and they do struggle to support wider tyres at lower pressures.. Often I have to run at 28-32 psi instead of 22-25 that i would prefer to run as my 2.35" winter tyres go all wobbly underneath me..

19mm is quite narrow for far tyres. any 2.1" tyres I have run have been fine though so it must be the rim width.

Back to the bike, the only thing I can see missing is a dropper post.. but for £1500, I reckon that's understandable.. I am seriously tempted by one of these..

bob6397

never had an issue with my 19mm rims and tyres rangin from 2.2 mountain kings to 2.35 bonty XR4.

I suspect you are running the pressures far too low

kirby700

I think the main problem with Boardman is the after sales care! The stores can't seem to help, for example the main bolt on mine was made from very soft metal and I rather ham fistedly rounded it. You try and get a replacement.

rockmonkeysc

Boardman mountain bikes still seem to be exclusive to Halfords but some independent shops are now selling the high end Road bikes, I'm sure they can get spares for mountain bikes as well.

kirby700

I thought I'd read somewhere that halfords bought boardman company apart from the elite series.

Clockworkmark31

Spec seems great for the money, looks a bit marmite though.

ArnieB

This looks amazing - a RS Pike fork for £1500.

my only comments would be

1) I think halfords sell great bikes badly. I bought a voodoo 3 years and had terrible experience with halfords. I now use a local bike mechanic and am much happier. He even said that a halfords sales guy brings his bike into him as the guy doesn't trust Halfords to service bikes.

2) Its SRAM kit - again the bike mechanic has told me he thinks Shimano is better quality than SRAM for most things

but an RS fork for £1500.

The Rookie

Nothing wrong with SRAM, it's different to Shimano, not worse.

As for RS forks, the Dart is a pig of a fork, you need to learn to look past a label.

A few Halfords have decent staff, but many don't, as for taking you stuff somewhere else, don't believe it as if the Halfords chap was that up on his cycling he'd be doing it himself like most MTBers.

jmillen

Don't think there is a catch to be honest, very well spec'd bike for the money. As has been said above, put a different brand name on and people would be paying considerably more than that...

As it has always been, it's the association with Halfords which i think puts people off. I've had 3 Boardman's in the past and they've all been fantastic bikes at a very good price...I just didn't take it back there if I need anything doing on it

Clockworkmark31

Still looks marmite with good sounding spec.

Question about the suspension design though. About I am no expert as I am still on HT. So forgive me if I get some things wrong.

Most companies use the rear triangle to pivot to the downtube. Why do Boardman link it to the toptube along with other manufacturers? Visualizing it in my minds eye seems like you are getting limited performance.

The Rookie

Its a four link suspension, some have the upper pivot on the seat tube, some on the top tube, I know of none on the downtube, the shock then drives off the top link in some manner, where the other end is anchored makes little odds as long as the leverage ratio and progression (of the leverage ratio) is right. The only ones that pivot on the downtube are archaic single pivot, which certainly do not offer a better suspension performance!

As for limiting performance, what performance aspect do you think is limited? Works perfectly well on many well respected bikes. Not usually used on longer travel bikes which tend to have the anchorage near the BB as this is better reacts with the rider weight which is mostly through the cranks (and therefore BB) but for a 140mm trail bike it's just fine.

It also has the advantage of moving the shock to a cleaner location and not cluttering the lower part of the triangle, that in turn allows more freedom with the seat tube which Boardman seem to have used to keep the chainstay lengths shorter for a more responsive ride feel, in fact at 430mm its commendably short for a 27.5 140mm bike, it's only 5mm longer than their 27.5 HT (and 2mm shorter than on my 26" 120mm FS).

Angus Young

Horrible colour schemes/graphics on this year's bikes.

Thewaylander

only issues I can see with it is its a little short - slightly conservative on geometry, but still not like its behind the times either.

if you happy with middle of the road geometry then perfect to be fair.

HardrockRob

£1500 or less with one of the frequent flash deals of 10% off (or more) - think there was/is one today - means you can get a Pike equipped full susser for £1350. Good value in anyone's book, name or not.

If I hadn't just got the Nukeproof I would have been tempted.