# Roadie Geek mounting more than the kerb...



## Andrew Spencer (11 Feb 2013)

Hi.
I'm new (hello), and I am a semi know-all roadie who is venturing into the world of off-roading.
I understand most things about road-bikes having built my own TT bike and converted it for generic (fast) road-riding so talk about groupsets and general tackle-tart conversations are of great interest to me.


Now then:
I want a mountain-bike. I want to spend no more than £450-500 (until I decide that I love it and will probably then be knowledgable enough to build my own).

Looking-around; I understand a hard-tail is good for downhilling (where it will spend most of it's life) and tearing-down hills and through forests and stuff.

What makes a good mountain-bike please? What should I be looking-for?

Is 6061 alloy considered evil and best-avoided? (my first road-bike was made of this and it was god-awful)
Who makes good front shocks and what do I need to understand about them?
Who makes good mountain-bike groupsets? (I don't see Campagnolo anywhere in this world for example...)
29" wheels: Why is bigger considered better? Is it really required for someone not even approaching amateur level?
Gears: 8, 9 or 10spd? What are the advantages / disadvantages of each?
Chainsets: Triples appear to the standard here, but a 44T max seems tiny in comparison to what I'm used to. I appreciate you need the low-ratio for climbing, but what about downhill? Is a low-ratio & high-cadence better than high-ratio and low cadence?
Carrera: Is there Stigma attached? Should I wear a paper-bag with a bullseye painted on it?
Please let me know everything. I did the old "buy a cheap bike and see how you get on" with my roadie, and promptly threw it away in favour of something decent after six months. That said: it was a Raleigh. Lesson-learned.
Anyway: Yeah. Please let me know what I need to know. Feel free to confuse the hell out me and point-out spelling mistakes and stuff.


Thanks in advance.

Spenny.


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## Motozulu (11 Feb 2013)

Hello and welcome! good time to buy a bike as you can still catch some 2012 bargains - I'm not going to tell you what you should buy as it depends what you will be riding the most of - bike parks and downhill fast stuff then deffo a full susser.

XC racing, fire roads and singletrack I'd go with a HT as you get more bang for your buck.

A decent full boinger will be up aroung the £1500 mark - however you can get a perfectly good fit for use HT for around £500. Here's a good example - really really well specced bike for the dosh.

I know it's slightly over budget but all the same - a great deal.

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b67s2p4207


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## Crackle (11 Feb 2013)

I'll have a bash at what I can for you and deliberately avoid the ones where I don't feel my depth of knowledge is sufficient.



Andrew Spencer said:


> Now then:
> I want a mountain-bike. I want to spend no more than £450-500 (until I decide that I love it and will probably then be knowledgable enough to build my own).
> 
> Look in For Sale, I'm not sure what size you are but someone was flogging a Boardman Hard Tail for an excellent price and someone else was selling a full susser for a good price too
> ...


 
Also read, Lukesdad's sticky guide to mtn biking, it covers all the basics and has some useful stuff in there.


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## Cubist (11 Feb 2013)

Hi, welcome to the darker of the two dark sides....

Terminology first. Downhilling is riding ridiculously fast down geet big hills on bikes that ought really be taken up the hill first on a ski lift or uplift truck. Go onto Youtube and search for the Danny hart video. Unless you want to do that sort of thing competitively then I would suggest you're more likely to be interested in XC or trail riding. The two are very close in terms of kit needed, but don't require 180mm travel forks etc etc 
Downhiller:






Note the burly frame, enormous travel forks, double barrel rear shock, single chainring and brakes the size of dinner plates.

A Cross Country (XC ) race bike on the other hand is light, responsive, and has fork travel between 80 and 120mm, no rear suspension. Wheels tend to be light but not too good over big rocky stuff, and the entire package tends to be light and stiff. They're built to race, to weigh not much more than an entry level road bike some as light as 9kg, but are often nervous thoroughbreds. 





You can get short travel XC full suss bikes, but again, you're into short rear shocks absorbing some of the hits and keeping your rear wheel planted, but the bikes are designed to accelerate fast, take some obstacles in their stride on fast off road routes, but won't be all that comfy for all day epics. 

An awful lot of MTBs sold today are nearer XC bikes than Downhillers, especially at the "entry level" end of the market. Here you're looking at trekking frames, often alu with a bewildering array of components. You can however narrow it down to stratae of componentry. Less than abut £600 and you can expect, generally speaking, a basic 100mm coil sprung fork, plain, basic wheels and drivetrain by Shimano or SRAM. 9 or 10 speed the norm now, with some 9 speed chainsets costing more aftermarket than 10 due to demand. 

Shimano have a tiered system of components, Acera (m3**) Alivio (m4**), Deore (M5**), SLX (M6**), XT (M7**), XTR (M9**). Acera mech c £20 through to XTR c £250
SRAM have the same, with their X5, X7, X9 XO and XX similar pricing

On your £600 entry level bike you'll find a mix of Alivio and Deore drivetrain. Functional, but basic and heavy. A bike in this price bracket will do well as an off road bike, but you'll soon want to upgrade and swap for lighter components. Frames will indeed be 6061 or 7005 alu alloys, and the more expensive the frame, the lighter it will get with hydroformed tubing and double/triple butting shaving weight in expensive tubes. I would generally expect a sub £600 bike to weigh around the 13-14kg mark.They'll mostly have factory finishing kit rather than named seatposts bars and stems etc. 





Between £600 and £1000 you're starting to see quality components. More than likely you'll find better damped coil or basic air forks, full deore or even , SLX drivetrain with a smattering of XT mechs to tempt the buyer. Same basic wheelsets, but you're into lighter hollowtech cranksets, and branded finishing kit. Expect weights to be dropping to 12-13 kg now, as these bikes will be hydroformed or butted 6061/ 7005, and lighter drivetrain. 





Over a grand and you're into the quality stuff, lightweight air forks and full SLX or XT drivetrain. You'll start seeing named wheelsets more and more, and as you creep over the £1k mark you'll start to see carbon frames. Weights will be nearer to 11kg than 12. 

Full suss XC and trail bikes start around this price point too, but don't expect much for under £1500. Spend a ballpark £2-£2.5K though, and you'll be into serious trail bike territory with 140mm travel Lapierres, basic Orange fives and well-equipped imports like Canyon and Rose. 

I suppose this is where we start to talk about trail riding. Comfort, not speed over distance, but huge fun on the more rugged descents and trails, and this is where you tend to find a lot of specialist bikes, self builds and custom jobs. 

Travel tends to be longer. Trail hardtails typically vary between 100mm and 140mm, but there are some 160mm fork HTs out there. Custom frames are de rigueur with niche brands like Cotic, Dialled, Orange, NS, Ragley, On One, to name but a few. If you have around a grand to spend you could do worse than look at On One and Ragley full builds. They are designed to be fun and take big hits on rough trails, rocks, drops, jumps and clattery singletrack. A lot of hardtails in this category are made from steel alloys. My Cotic Soul with its Reynolds 853 tubing weighs about 500g more than the aluminium Cube frame it replaced. Trail bikes often have MTB compact gearing setup. Mine has 36-22 front over 9 speed 11-34 cassette, so a spread of gears that's hugely useful. (A 42 or 4T chainring on a MTB is good for 45mph, so don't think you'll be undergeared)





Full sus trail bikes are a far bigger part of the fun bike market, with 120-150mm travel the norm. Heavier frames with rear shocks, but geometry designedd to allow climbing, with fun and planted descent is the order of the day. Typically a full susser in this category will weigh between 12 and 15 kg depending on kit. Built for all day epics and fun stuff, this is my favourite riding genre. This Canyon-framed XT drivetrained bike weighs 12.5kg





So, that's a bit of a whistle stop tour, but don't forget, MTB includes Dirt Jump, 4X, Freeride, Slopestyle, Enduro, the list goes on.


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## HovR (11 Feb 2013)

As far as entry level bikes go, the Voodoo Hoodoo is rated very well. Check out its Bike Radar review.

Regarding Carreras, there's nothing wrong with them and can be quite nice bikes. I've borrowed a friends Carrera Vengeance (£450) before and found it was a nice ride on the first two trails we did, although by the third the mechanical disc brakes had started to wear down to the point they needed adjustment (as the conditions were very wet and gritty) meaning I had slightly less control and was starting to fall behind on the downhills due to having to ride more cautiously. 

From that experience I'd say aim to have hydraulic disc brakes, they're just worlds ahead of mechanical for proper off-road in my opinion.


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## Monsieur Remings (11 Feb 2013)

I'm new to the MTB scene too Spencer, coming from a roadie background, and I can tell you that Cubist knows his stuff.

Good luck fella.


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## 02GF74 (11 Feb 2013)

with you budget, well actually any budget, you get more bike for you cash if you buy a used bike - most of mine are and if you select wisely, you would hardly tell them from a new bike.

there are plenty for sale on forums - bikeradar being a good place plus ofcourse ebay.

broadly speaking there are 3 types of bike - hardtail for cross country riding, good for climbing by being light and rigid rear end.

xc full suspension, this has bouncy reary end that can be locked out so is still good for climbing but can handle fast downhill runns.

all out dh - these are for one purpose only and that is haring down hills and bumps at ridiculous speeds; they would be very hard work riding up hill.

brands to look out for are Cannondale, Specialized, Trek, Scott.

most popular sitll is 3x9 gears and 26 inch wheels so there is pleny to choose from.

re: frame size you will be looking at 5 inches smaller than your road bike, if your road bike is the correct size - that should be 1/3 your height in inches i.e. a 6 ft person would be on 24 in road bike and 19 in mountain bike.


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## mickeydrippin60 (12 Feb 2013)

rockrider 8.1 £550 beltin bike


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## BikeLiker (12 Feb 2013)

Motozulu said:


> Here's a good example - really really well specced bike for the dosh.
> 
> I know it's slightly over budget but all the same - a great deal.
> 
> http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b67s2p4207


 
More of a roadie than an MTBer myself but can recommend this bike and supplier - got a 2012 Cube LTD SL from them yesterday and am V pleased.


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## Cubist (13 Feb 2013)

BikeLiker said:


> More of a roadie than an MTBer myself but can recommend this bike and supplier - got a 2012 Cube LTD SL from them yesterday and am V pleased.


That's a pretty good price, and a lovely bike.


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