mountain bike

steve said:

i am new to mountain biking and have up to 400 quid to buy a new bike i

Quoted message said:

have been thinking along the lines of the gt avalanche 2.0 disc or the
trek 4300 disc wondered what your thoughts are on these bikes? or
indeed if you can identify any other bike that may be suitable

Quoted message said:

i will be using it both for trails and road use but am not going to
become involved in any serious mountain biking just mainly for fitness
and leisure.

In which case I'd avoid the disc brakes. Unless you're spending
Real Money (TM) then they're no better than well adjusted V-brakes,
but take more out of your budget, weigh more and the pads are
harder to get and cost more. Only real advantage at this price
point is if you have a particular affinity for deep mud and grit,
and it sounds like you don't.

If it's not "serious mountain biking" I'd be more inlined to get a
26" wheel hybrid which will do a lot better on the road at the
expense of not quite so well off it on tricky technical stuff, but
typical trails don't have much of that.

Something like a Marin Muirwoods, perhaps. With the money going on
good frame and decent components, rather than Bling! discs and
suspension, you'll get a more efficient bike that lasts longer.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

in message <[email hidden]>, steve

(') said:

i am new to mountain biking and have up to 400 quid to buy a new bike i

have been thinking along the lines of the gt avalanche 2.0 disc or the
trek 4300 disc wondered what your thoughts are on these bikes? or
indeed if you can identify any other bike that may be suitable

If you've got limited money do not get disk brakes. Decent disk brakes
cost £100 each so that means the rest of the bike is as good as a £250
bike with V brakes. Cheap disk brakes are no better than V brakes except
in exceptionally gloopy conditions, and even good disk brakes are not
much better than Vs.

Quoted message said:

i will be using it both for trails and road use but am not going to
become involved in any serious mountain biking just mainly for fitness
and leisure.

In that case don't get a mountain bike at all. Mountain bikes are not at
all good on tarmac - the geometry is wrong, the suspension works against
you, and the tyres are draggy. All that adds up to seriously hard work.
A good hybrid with no suspension and 700c wheels with narrow, slick or
nearly slick tyres will be enormously better for trails and road use.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Hobbit ringleader gives Sauron One in the Eye.

steve said:

i am new to mountain biking and have up to 400 quid to buy a new bike i

have been thinking along the lines of the gt avalanche 2.0 disc or the
trek 4300 disc wondered what your thoughts are on these bikes? or
indeed if you can identify any other bike that may be suitable

i will be using it both for trails and road use but am not going to
become involved in any serious mountain biking just mainly for fitness
and leisure.

If anyone has any thoughts i would be only to pleased to hear from you

ta
steve ;-)

Depends what you mean by 'serious'. Don't think my missus would regard
her MTB-ing as 'serious' (except when she got bitten by a traveller's
unchained dog, and that turned out to be not that serious, just
painful) but she has done some lumpy bits of the South Downs Way and
Dartmoor on her '03 GT Avalanche 2.0 (definitely a nice bike, which I
can recommend); I don't think a hybrid would have been fun at all 😉

So if you want to do some mountain biking i.e. go up and down hills
using other than Sustrans cycle paths, with the odd bit of road use (eg
nip to shops), then go the MTB route as the front suspension and big
tyres will make life a whole lot more comfortable.

I'd second what others have said about discs: I have Avids (best cable
discs?) on my recumbent road bike, but only because of their higher
heat capacity when used with 20" wheels ('bents go downhills FAST), but
Vees on my MTB's. For what you want I'd go for a better spec fork (but
stay with 3 x 8 transmission), but I can see where you are coming from
as most £350-£400 'packages' seem to have discs.... Definitely add
'bling' which would help (a lot) if you find you don't like MTB's and
want to sell after a year.

Hope this helps.

squeaker said:

So if you want to do some mountain biking i.e. go up and down hills
using other than Sustrans cycle paths, with the odd bit of road use (eg
nip to shops), then go the MTB route as the front suspension and big
tyres will make life a whole lot more comfortable.

But OTOH they'll make the bike a chore on the roads. If it's a
one-bike-fits-all then you'll have to accept compromises. I have a MTB
I use for my rare off-road forays, but if I had to choose a
one-bike-fits-all for occasional off-road and mainly on, it wouldn't be
an MTB. Especially as it's easy enough to hire one in the sort of
places you'll want a serious off-roader.

Quoted message said:

I'd second what others have said about discs: I have Avids (best cable
discs?) on my recumbent road bike, but only because of their higher
heat capacity when used with 20" wheels

I've been a bit ambivalent about the Avid mech discs I've tried on the
demo bikes at Kinetics. I much prefer the Magura HS-33 hydraulic rim
brakes I have on my 'bent (20/26), and that's done some /huge/ descents
at speed with full-on touring gear and it's not been a problem.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

steve said:

i am new to mountain biking and have up to 400 quid to buy a new bike i

have been thinking along the lines of the gt avalanche 2.0 disc or the
trek 4300 disc wondered what your thoughts are on these bikes? or
indeed if you can identify any other bike that may be suitable

i will be using it both for trails and road use but am not going to
become involved in any serious mountain biking just mainly for fitness
and leisure.

If anyone has any thoughts i would be only to pleased to hear from you

ta
steve ;-

You could always go secondhand. £400 would get you a good
Stumpjumper, or an excellent Rockhopper (for example). You'd almost
certainly get good discs on the Rockhopper. Check out ebay and the
classifieds section of singletrackworld (which may be better for you
than ebay as it's not an auction, so you can check the bike out before
buying.).

As others have said though, Discs aren't that much better than properly
set up V's, and checp suspension is just added weight and drag. I'd
also invest in a couple of pairs of tyres, some slicks if your're jusy
going on road, and some not so slicks if your doing bridlepaths.
Others may suggest tyres like the Crossroads, whcih are apparently good

on road and light off road (I have no experience of these however).

Bryan

"yorky" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

You could always go secondhand. £400 would get you a good
Stumpjumper, or an excellent Rockhopper (for example). You'd almost
certainly get good discs on the Rockhopper. Check out ebay and the
classifieds section of singletrackworld (which may be better for you
than ebay as it's not an auction, so you can check the bike out before
buying.).

The problem here being that a keen cyclist may be able to spot the
difference between a real bargain and a pile of poo but a newbie may not.
So unless you think you have a reasonable idea I'd suggest you go down the
bike shop route, or buy mail order brand new if you've half an idea ;-)

My 10p,
Pete

The GT or a nice Specialized would do you fine. Avoid the disks brakes
as they are an unecessary expense unless you are planning on getting
very muddy.

in message <[email hidden]>, yorky

(') said:

As others have said though, Discs aren't that much better than properly
set up V's, and checp suspension is just added weight and drag. I'd
also invest in a couple of pairs of tyres, some slicks if your're jusy
going on road, and some not so slicks if your doing bridlepaths.
Others may suggest tyres like the Crossroads, whcih are apparently good
on road and light off road (I have no experience of these however).

If you're going down the 'two sets of tyres' route it's worth thinking of
buying a second pair of wheels. Continually changing tyres is a drag,
and one decent bike with two decent sets of wheels and tyres is a good
bit cheaper and a good bit less hassle to store than two decent bikes.

However, even with narrow slick tyres, a mountain bike's pretty
compromised on the road.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks? To murder men and give God thanks?
Desist, for shame! Proceed no further: God won't accept your thanks for
murther
-- Robert Burns, 'Thanksgiving For a National Victory'