beginning mountain biker - looking for advice on buying a bike

[LesserBlackDog]

Hi there,
I'm a fairly experienced "recreational" cyclist and occasional commuter. Although I'm originally from MT, I lived in the Midwest the past several years and owned a hybrid bike (Trek 7.3 FX), which was adequate for city biking.

Now that I live in the Rockies again, though, I'm getting a little tired of my bike's total lack of suspension and inability to traverse dirt and gravel roads and so on. So I'm looking to buy a mountain bike that I can use for recreation and commuting, as well as maybe start getting into actual mountain biking as a hobby at some point. I'm hoping those of you with more experience can give me a little insight. I've done a bit of research and shopping around and I think what I'm basically looking for is a hardtail with front suspension, disc brakes, and ideally sub-$500. I'm not a hardcore rider and I probably won't ever be so it doesn't need to be the most badass bike ever, just a high-quality beginner's mountain bike.

The bikes I've been looking at are:

Specialized Hardrock Disc ($520)
Trek 3700 Disc ($460)
Novara Bonanza ($599) (the REI in-house brand)

Can anyone make any recommendations between these bikes, or tell me if there's something else I should be looking at?

I've also been looking a bit at bikes well above my ideal price range - stuff like the Specialized Rockhopper and the Trek 4300 Disc. Is it worth it to invest the extra cash?

Thanks for your help,
LBD

 

[vspa]

Originally Posted by LesserBlackDog .

Hi there,
I'm a fairly experienced "recreational" cyclist and occasional commuter. Although I'm originally from MT, I lived in the Midwest the past several years and owned a hybrid bike (Trek 7.3 FX), which was adequate for city biking.

Now that I live in the Rockies again, though, I'm getting a little tired of my bike's total lack of suspension and inability to traverse dirt and gravel roads and so on. So I'm looking to buy a mountain bike that I can use for recreation and commuting, as well as maybe start getting into actual mountain biking as a hobby at some point. I'm hoping those of you with more experience can give me a little insight. I've done a bit of research and shopping around and I think what I'm basically looking for is a hardtail with front suspension, disc brakes, and ideally sub-$500. I'm not a hardcore rider and I probably won't ever be so it doesn't need to be the most badass bike ever, just a high-quality beginner's mountain bike.

The bikes I've been looking at are:

Specialized Hardrock Disc ($520)
Trek 3700 Disc ($460)
Novara Bonanza ($599) (the REI in-house brand)

Can anyone make any recommendations between these bikes, or tell me if there's something else I should be looking at?

I've also been looking a bit at bikes well above my ideal price range - stuff like the Specialized Rockhopper and the Trek 4300 Disc. Is it worth it to invest the extra cash?

Thanks for your help,
LBD

Yes for TREK it is worth to invest some more into their 4 series but maybe not worth to jump into their 5 series,
checkout Cannondale F7 2010 model, killer value, for 2011 they have change models name though

 

[stevegreer]

I got a great deal on my Giant Yukon when I bought it. The saleman at my LBS took $100 off the sticker price and I ended up paying just over $500 for it before taxes. It's a great bike, and the only thing I don't like about it is it came stock with a RockShox Dart 1 fork. Definitely not the best fork in RockShox's line. But it came stock with Kenda Nevegal tires, which are by far some of the best tires on the market. I would also recommend browsing Craigslist.org for your local area and see if there are any used MTB's for sale too. Good luck with the hunt!