New bike advice

cycletograft

Hello fellow forumites,
I have tried to avoid asking this question, but I have spent hours researching, and can't find the bike I'm after.
I will order a bike on cycle to work in the next few weeks. My ride to work will be 70% maintained roads and paths (I'd like the bike to be efficient here), 20% dirt track / bridleway, 10% bumpy tracks.
At weekends, I will go out with the kids, maybe over cleadonhills, maybe through Sherwood forest etc.

I think my criteria are:
Price range £450 to £900
Chainring - largest must be above 40T, to stop me pedalling out on a long tarmac downhill on my return from work, whether as std on the bike, or swapped over by the shop.
650b, or 650b+ rear tyres, for comfort on the rutted / very bumpy hills section I will ride.
Ideally the frame would accept a 2.6 tyre
Front suspension
Mounts for mudguards and maybe a rack.
Good reliable components

I think I'm after a mild hard tail, with a front derailure, and a big chainring.



Thank you in advance for any advice you can give.

whatwouldmikedo

If 70% of your riding is on roads then a MTB may not be the way to go. I would only buy a bike with suspension at the top of your budget as the quality at the lower end isnt great.

Have you looked at the Whyte Portobello Plus? No suspension but the 650b wheels make for a good ride in most conditions.

davee128

whatwouldmikedo wrote:

If 70% of your riding is on roads then a MTB may not be the way to go. I would only buy a bike with suspension at the top of your budget as the quality at the lower end isnt great.

I'll second that. Having fairly recently bought a commuting EMTB (Trek Powerfly Sport) with a Suntour XCM fork, the rest of the bike is great but the fork is utterly awful. I hear XCT and XCR forks are similar. I genuinely can't tell whether the fork is locked out or not over rough terrain. The 2.2" Smart Sam tyres absorb far more bumps. I think the compression damping must be totally agricultural and spikes at the merest hint of a bump. Happy to bounce around if sprinting though! I'm half way through upgrading the fork, which is complicated by loss of mudguard and front light mounting - Surely the reason Trek specified this fork for this bike. Otherwise the bike is ideal for my commute which has quite a lot of rough off road and the motor means the tyre drag is a non-issue.

I think a fat-tyred gravel bike is worth a look. If you do go MTB, get tyres that roll well. A good dry conditions XC tyre or something like the Smart Sam is worth considering. Neither are great in mud, but drag less on the road.

While your commute may be 70% road by distance, I'd look at the percentage of time spent which may be very different!

The Rookie

DaveE128 wrote:

Having fairly recently bought a commuting EMTB (Trek Powerfly Sport) with a Suntour XCM fork, the rest of the bike is great but the fork is utterly awful. I hear XCT and XCR forks are similar. I genuinely can't tell whether the fork is locked out or not over rough terrain.

The XCM comes in two flavours, mechanical lockout and hydraulicly damped, the latter is much better, the mechanical lockout doesn't like harsh bumps which can break it. The seal on them isn't great and a bottom end service and fresh greasing works wonders.

XCR used to be an XCM with iterative improvements, its now a totally different and much much better fork.

singleton

oxoman wrote:

If you want speed for 70% of your riding then a bit of gravel trails etc I'd be looking at CX / gravel bike with tyres around 42,s.

I totally agree - what you describe is exactly what gravel bikes were designed and built for.
I've got a Cube CX and I go out on that with my mates when they are on their MTB's. The bike does everything except the most extreme stuff - and certainly copes very easily with your average tow paths and single tracks.

There are loads of options at your price point including: Boardman ADV 8.8, Maybe a Whyte Glencoe, Specialized Diverge...