[loafimus]

I've got an old (1997) trek 850 that I'm dying to replace. This summer I've been riding it about 80 miles a week on it, and needless to say, its starting to fall apart. Most of my riding is done on paved and unpaved trails, nothing too extreme. I'll wait to head on the old mountian bike trails like I loved to do in highschool till I drop some more of this weight =)

Basically I'm trying to find the best bike I can get for $400 or around there. I love my trek, and was looking at the Trek 4500. A local shop here has the Schwinn 2004 Mesa GSD , complete with disk brakes and the whole shebang for $360, and it looks like a very good deal. They also have the full suspension Schwinn 2004 Rocket 3 for $400.

http://www.trekbikes.com/bikes/2004/mountain/4500.jsp
http://www.schwinnbikes.com/products/bikes_detail.php?id=280
http://www.schwinnbikes.com/products/bikes_detail.php?id=399

Does anyone have any other suggestions besides these? Right now I think I'm leaning most towards the Mesa GSD.

 

[HTail]

Any good

Umm, I think any of those are good. You're kind of limited at that price range. if it were me, I'd save another $400. At $800-1000, you'll have a bike that will do it all and you won't have to replace it anytime soon. Even if you don't mtn bike a lot, you'll still have a quality bike in which you can upgrade later.

 

[loafimus]

Umm, I think any of those are good. You're kind of limited at that price range. if it were me, I'd save another $400. At $800-1000, you'll have a bike that will do it all and you won't have to replace it anytime soon. Even if you don't mtn bike a lot, you'll still have a quality bike in which you can upgrade later.

In the time since I posted this, I decided just to update my trek 850. Its a good ole chro molly frame, so its a little heavier then the new fancy ones, but its nice and strong to support me at 260lbs. I've put the frame through a lot, and its never even squeeked on me.

For the time being I'm going to get a deore LX kit for it and maybe a fork once I read up on a good one for big dudes, and if I can find a good one on ebay =) I figure if and when I drop some more weight, I can just strip this bike and buy a new frame for all the parts I upgrade on this bike.

 

[Cary]

Do not waste your money upgrading your bike. You will throw $400 at it and have a bike that is worth $200. Check out Ibexbikes.com. Also check out the Giant bikes. To the extent you can save $100-200 more you will get significant upgrades by buying a $500-600 bike. If your bike is still usable, ride it for a while longer and save up the additional money.

 

[bacchanal]

agreed....frames don't last forever and $400 won't get you very far in parts. there are bikes at the $500-$600 range that aren't bad. I would try to avoid anything with an Suntour, RST, or Judy TT fork if you can. The Giant Iguana would be something to compare to.

 

[loafimus]

agreed....frames don't last forever and $400 won't get you very far in parts. there are bikes at the $500-$600 range that aren't bad. I would try to avoid anything with an Suntour, RST, or Judy TT fork if you can. The Giant Iguana would be something to compare to.

I agree that a frame wont last forever, but I guess my way of looking at it is like this. None of the bikes that I was looking at in the $400 range really looked all that great to me. If i just upgrade parts on my bike as I get more money, eventually I plan on having good compenentry on this bike. I got a Rock Shox Psylo off of ebay for a real good price, and all of these items I plan on moving to a different frame once I can afford one.

That way I eventually end up with a nice frame, compenents, and everything, but not all of the expense of it is at once. Thank you very much for your input though, it is greatly appreciated, as I now know that a frame is probably the next thing I should consider.