New biker...Giant, Specialized, or budget

Disc brakes depend on what type of riding you plan on doing. If your riding urban V-brakes will be fin, if your going to be riding with the buds off road hitting up some jumps occasionally you want a real MTB.
Also just to confuse your list more check out Ibex, sweet frame & killer components for the price. :cornut:

http://www.ibexbikes.com/

Get the brake and bike you simply like the best... within reason, making sure it's not junk. A friend of mine bought a new Trek 4900 hardtail with disc brakes (which I advised), but those cheap brakes that came on it feel terrible (require far too much force to operate). In his case, he probably would have been better off with a good set of v-brakes or high quality Avid BB7 mechanical disc brakes.

Anyway, regarding the bike, at this part of your biking life, I suggest you simply get the bike that you like the best... you'll ride it more. Either of those bikes will work well, but please stay away from the rattletraps from the chain stores. If you want any longevity and resale value, get a namebrand bike from a reputable local bike shop (LBS).

Those bikes sounds good. I don't know about the Forge since I haven't seen it, and don't know much about it, or the components.

I like Specialized, I like their geometry and I think they are good bikes. DogonFR really likes Ibex, and from the website they are a great value. I would really sugest you look at the Ibex website at least for consideration.

Anyway, resale value is not that important at that price range. I think bikes depreciate real fast, and if the original price is 300 bucks, if you sell it in one or two years, no matter which brand it is, you won't get too much. Probably if you continue riding and upgrade bikes, you can keep the bike and use it as a comuter, a spare bike or something.

Most of the Specialized frames are made by Giant. Think about it.

MUSTCLIME said:

Most of the Specialized frames are made by Giant. Think about it.

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Yep, but to Specialized specs..... Both are good bikes, just designed different. Try to ride them both and decide.

Thanks for the responses. I recently read a review saying that the specialized hardrock "forks are junk." What components can go into creating a bad fork, so I'll know what to look for in the bike.

Also, when I go to the bike shop and ask to try a bike out and ride it, what should I expect? A considerable amount of time riding this bike (5-10 min) or a few quick circles in front of the store owner. I don't think I'll be able to tell if the bike will do well offroad when I'm testing it on asphalt....

Oh yea almost forgot.....what does millimeters of movement mean? What is a good mm of movement measure?

In the lower budget bike range the forks are not great. You probibly mean MM's of travel, that is how many MM's the fork can travel up to absorb impacts.

http://www.psinvention.com/zoetic/convert.htm

rzozaya1969 said:

Yep, but to Specialized specs..... Both are good bikes, just designed different. Try to ride them both and decide.

Click to expand...

Yep....but, when you buy a specialized bike you are getting it from a second middle man...

here is a example.....giant make a frame....sells it to"S"$....."S" sells it to your bike shop$...your shop sells it to you$

gaint makes a giant frame...Sells it to your shop$......your shop sells it to you$

This is why giant bike cost less.....

You see now if you go to Ibex you dont have to pay for all the changing of hands, to Ibex to you. :thumbsup: