Back in the game... need help choosing my weapon

I was going to give you crap for using "choosing my weapon" when referring to a bike, but since you been in the military for the last decade, go for it.
Anyway, outside of fit, the biggest thing that will impact the quality of your ride is the suspension. Unfortunately most entry-level to mid-level bikes come with not-so-great forks. It would be great if they would offer a fork upgrade for another $100 or so, but they usually don't. The good news is that even some of the lower end forks are probably better than whatever you were riding 10 years ago.The bad news is that they tend to be really heavy and the damping systems are not near as good as you would get on a mid-range or better fork. I didn't look at the specs on all those bikes, but I'd suggest you first rank them based on the suspension, then by the brakes, then by the drivetrain. Drivetrains are pretty decent these days and anything X5 or better or Deore or better is going to be fine.

My honest opinion to people buying a new entry-level to mid-range hardtail is 1st see if you can find one with a decent fork. If not, find one with decent other components at a little less than you planned on spending for the complete bike. Then take the fork off before you use the bike and sell it as a new take-off on ebay and put that money towards a better fork.

jguere- its all good, welcome to the forums.

I checked out the specs of all of the above on the forums, and really, they're more similar than I thought. I do agree that a good fork is key, and it looks like you've got a basic Dart 3 on all of them except the GT and the Giant (if I recall), which have a Tora. RS Tora is a step up (IMO), but not an astronomical one. I think both have a lockout feature (where you can keep the fork from rebounding, very nice to have on pavement), which I wish I had on my Manitou Black fork.

I personally would hesitate to get a GT because they're now in Dorel's stable (along with Mongoose, Cannondale, Schwinn, Dyno, etc.). My take on them is that they buy brands out and then paste the brand name on every POS they can sell at Walmart and Toys R Us. From what I understand, GT and Cdale are still making quality bikes, but all else being equal, I'd lean more towards Trek (who owns GF) and Giant.

EDIT- started typing and got caught up in an eBay auction so I didn't see the previous couple of posts...

jguere said:

Here is a short list of the bikes I'm looking at... thoughts? recommendations?

Click to expand...

Trek and Specialized both carefully control discounting by their dealers making it especially unlikely that you'll find any really good deals except for one scenario: Trek just cut out all the non-Trek Gary Fisher dealers back in June and many of those dealers are now offering aggressive discounts to clear out their existing GF inventory. Now may not be the best time to pay a going-forward Trek/Gary Fisher dealer anything near MSRP on a 2010 Gary Fisher bike.

Giant, GT and some other brands are where you can find deals if that's important to you (I assume you didn't get rich in the military). As a 29er HT owner myself, I 'm agreement with the opinion that the seriously large tires on many 29er's offer some of the comfort and smoothness of a full-suspension bike with a much low cost and drastically reduced maintenance. Performance's Access XCL 9r bikes and JensonUSA's Bianchi SOK 29er are well worth looking at.

The big issue with Shimano vs. SRAM is that SRAM uses 1:1 shifting and Shimano uses a 2:1 system. You can't use SRAM 1:1 shifters with Shimano 2:1 derailleurs, and you cannot use SRAM 1:1 derailleurs with Shimano 2:1 shifters. Both get high praises but many feel that SRAM 1:1 takes knocks and abuse better while also being less fiddly to set up. Still it's close enough to be down to personal preference though.

On RockShox, note that none of the TurnKey forks come with serviceable bushings. The Tora 318 gets into a whole different level with both Motion-Control and serviceable bushings -- the only thing making it a "Tora" is the chromed steel stanchions (not a bad thing). I've read lots of fork reviews and Marzocchi, Manitou, Fusion, RST, etc all come in a distant second behind Fox and RockShox. Not that a high-end Marzocchi or Manitou might not better better overall than a low-end RockShox but comparing apples to apples I'm doubtful that so many reviewers could be far off in their unanimous opinions.

Recent issues of the UK magazines What Mountain Bike? and Mountain Bike Rider each have some pretty good shoot-out articles. Might be worth $10 a copy to get a sense of what reviewers especially like and dislike in the bikes they've tested.

I didn't realize that you were in Europe. In that case, I would definitely buy a 29er if available and hope to flip it onto the local economy where 29er's are still a rarity. There's bound to be some German Clydes out there looking for big wheels.

The thing with 29er's is that, for an equivalent wheelset, you're going to get more flex and noticeably slower acceleration. On the plus side though is a smoother, faster ride, better traction and greater rotational inertia to take you up short hills. Everything is a compromise but for me and a lot of other people the pros of big wheels outweigh the cons.

I worked for the Army in Berlin back in 1985 and I needed a set of wheels to get around. AAFES didn't have jack locally and I was in too big of a hurry to train to the West to have a look there. The situation in the British Sector wasn't much better but up in Berlin's French Sector the Frog PX had a decent selection and I picked up a nice Peugeot road bike that took me a lot of miles over my subsequent few years in Europe. I'm hoping for your sake (and all service members) that AAFES has improved over the retail experience they provided back then.

Thanks for your service and good luck finding a bike you'll like and enjoy.

OK, so Cannondale F4/F5 is out of the question after visiting AAFES... but I did go to another LBS today and check out some European brands... I think DHM is a definite possibility... here's the one I'm looking at... it's a 2009 model on sale for 849 Euros which will equal out to about $815 after tax exemption...



https://www.hmbike.com/dynasite.cfm?dsmid=82884&action=viewdet&ID=116&MarkeID=6&CategoryID=8&JahrID=2