21st birthday present, bike advice!

[benmcmc]

Hi,

I'm looking to get a 21st birthday present in the form of a bicycle. Hopefully my criteria is not too awkward and is quite straight forward!

I'm looking to get a bike mainly for fitness use, commuting around cardiff and possibly taking the bike off road into the welsh mountains for some fun!

I'm getting the bike on the cycle scheme so hopefully will get 40% off, taking that in mind I want to spend around 500 pounds so that means just under 900 pounds without the discount.

My initial instinct is to go for either a hardtale or a hybrid bike. The only thing about a full on mountain bike that puts me off is the loss of speed with suspension, is this very significant? Because to be honest I would prefer a bike with suspension for the comfier ride but not if im going to sacrafice a lot of speed.

Thanks for your time guys.

Ben

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Hi,

I'm looking to get a 21st birthday present in the form of a bicycle. Hopefully my criteria is not too awkward and is quite straight forward!

I'm looking to get a bike mainly for fitness use, commuting around cardiff and possibly taking the bike off road into the welsh mountains for some fun!

I'm getting the bike on the cycle scheme so hopefully will get 40% off, taking that in mind I want to spend around 500 pounds so that means just under 900 pounds without the discount.

My initial instinct is to go for either a hardtale or a hybrid bike. The only thing about a full on mountain bike that puts me off is the loss of speed with suspension, is this very significant? Because to be honest I would prefer a bike with suspension for the comfier ride but not if im going to sacrafice a lot of speed.

Thanks for your time guys.

Ben

Many hard-tail MTB's have a fork lock out so it can be pretty much rigid. MTB tyres present greater rolling resistance. You can get slicks for road use and tyres that will do pretty well on road on basic off road routes. Based on what you say you are looking for I would suggest something like this

 

[benmcmc]

Many hard-tail MTB's have a fork lock out so it can be pretty much rigid. MTB tyres present greater rolling resistance. You can get slicks for road use and tyres that will do pretty well on road on basic off road routes. Based on what you say you are looking for I would suggest something like this

Thanks for the info, how does the fork lock out exactly work? Would you recommend disk brakes for my use? As I did prefer them when I had a bike many years ago.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Thanks for the info, how does the fork lock out exactly work? Would you recommend disk brakes for my use? As I did prefer them when I had a bike many years ago.

Every lockout I'm aware of works by greatly increasing compression damping (basically blocking off the low speed compression). If you have no spring, you'll fully compress the fork and it will stay there (sort of, there may be something that acts as a light spring, such as the the boost valve pressure in a fox rear shock), the damper being locked won't prevent this, just slow it down.

Disk brakes are great for off road use as they are VERY powerful. On the roads they may be a little excessive. Hybrids tend to have V brakes and road bikes powerful Calliper brakes.