Dave P

Had a cheap Saracen Mountain Bike for a couple of years which has been gathering dust in my garage, whilst my waistline gathers inches, but following my new years resolution to get fit I have been going out with a mate around Crowborough. Obviously with Crowborough being the highest point in Sussex, a certain rule follows, what goes down must go up, so it's pretty hard work. But to my credit I'm sticking with it and have to confess that it's the best fun I have ever had on a bike especially round here with the mud and hills!!!!

If I can stick with it for a few months or more I may upgrade to a better bike.... so firstly any recommendations... and secondly for interest only, what IS the most expensive bike. I see one in this months mbr for the princely sum of £3999.99!


Dave

Graz

I'm sure it would be easily possible to top £4000 for a mountain bike. Usually some rare fully suspended titainium beast, with mix of Shimano XTR, Chris King, etc. components.

You can get a good hardtail mountain bike (front suspension only) from around £400 upwards. As always the more you pay the better it gets.

Don't consider full suspension unless you have at least £1500 to spend otherwise you will end up with something very heavy and probably not very pleasent to ride.

Anyway for now it sounds like you're enjoying the Saracen so as they say in MBR "Just get out and ride!".

I've got a Y2K Marin Mount Vision which I really enjoy, tempted to trade it for a Specialised Enduro at the moment though it's not really necessary. Just want a new toy

MarkO

You don't need to get a full-susser to spend 4k. We've got a Scott Team Issue hardtail with v-brakes that retails at £3350.

Most expensive bike? Anything other than 4k would be a frameset + build it up yerself job. Check out the Litespeed bikes which don't come in too cheap.

Crapaud62

One of my old Cannondales was £3,700 basic + lots more for extras including Spin carbon fibre wheels.

No matter how much you spend you still have to pedal it!

dome

I had the pleasure of building a Trek OCLV for a customer to pretty much Lance Amstrong spec. Beautiful bike, featherweight and very fast..

As far as yours goes it's hard to say withought seeing it, I'd say find a friendly bike mechanic to give it a once over for you. He'll be able to advise whether or not it's worth spending any money on it.

If you enjoy it and want to start doing things more seriously go for it, I'd say £400 is a good starting point for a hardtail (no rear suspension). It really depends on the type of cycling you're going to be doing.

Heres a couple of sites.

www.bikemagic.com
www.singletrackworld.com

Brian

MarkO

£3,700 for a Cannondale? Presumably it cost that much 'cos after the frame snaps you end up with so many more bits than the competitors' bikes?

damage

How can you justify £4k for a MTB. You can get a 2nd hand Yam R1 for that or maybe a scooby !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AvalancheS8

Yes, you can get a car or a motor bike for £4k, but then you can get a push bike for £50. In terms of technology, performance and quality a £4k bike is pretty much in line a WRC scooby, i.e identical to what the very top guys in the sport use to win the world champs.
Now whether it's worth spending this much for most people, and whether they will have the fitness and riding skills to make the most of it, that's another matter. Regardless. the fact is it's fun to have the very best equipment that you can get, and although with cars this level of kit is not available to the public, and would be financially beyond the reach of most people if it was, with bikes you can buy it, and get it set up for money that a keen cyclist can manage.
In the field of cycling that I participate in (Downhill mountain bikes) it's simply a matter that a bike costing much less than £2k is either going to be seriously compromised performance wise (i.e no rear suspension), or it will not be strong enough to stand up to the use and abuse it will take, so people buy £3k-£4k bikes as a matter of course in order to have something that will last.

MarkO

Yeah, it's the same as Scoobies, really. By the time you've upgraded your bike to have carbon-fibre swingarms, inverted air suspension at the front, and 6-pot disks, the price soon mounts up.

AvalancheS8

Yup, gets expensive!!

Here's a link to the trailer for a MTB video that came out recently - New World Disorder IV - for your Friday entertainment. There's some pretty amazing stuff on it, will worth the download.

Lots more here

Dave P

£539 for lights! That's impressive. Which are the best lights for under about £80 or is it simply not worth trying without more expensive lights! My mate already participates in night rides and he's more than happy to accompany me on lighter rides. We don't do more than an hour at the moment.

Dave

C

So whats a good bike for around the £1000 mark?

Want a hardtail, nice & light & probably a bit on the small side because I like throwing them around a bit, it's something I want to get back into

My last bike was a GT LTS with Pace front suspension, SRAM grip shifters & Magura hydralic brakes - in it's day it was good but that was long gone about 8 years ago now

Added bonus that I might get fit doing it too

gljam

Went to the bike show at the nec a few years ago and they had the one off Mountain Cycle Shockwave there. Custom made bits 'n' pieces, gold plated cranks etc...


...Grand total £9000!

Makes my £2500 gt i-drive look well cheap

Jolley

I have a GT i-drive dual slalom bike costing around £2,700, and a downhill Orange 222 IBS with a few upgrades costing £4,300. I am led to believe that a lot of the bikes ridden in the Downhill world cup often cost as much as £20,000 (however, this is because they have a lot of one-off R&D kit on them, and it would not be possible to build such a bike).

You are right that you could buy an R1 (though I wanted an R6) for that, but this keeps me fit, provides me with a challenge (I race), and is marginally less likely to kill me!!

The funny thing is that since trading in my Clio for a WRX (saloon because I do not like the MY03 wagons), I haven't taken my bikes anywhere.... most get a roof rack!!

Butkus

That old argument about how you could buy a car for the price you paid for your bike is pretty silly. Let's say that bikes range in price from £200 to £4,000. Then let's say cars range from, what, £6,000 to £120,000 for a Ferrari 360?

Your £4,000 bike is really the equivalent of the Ferrari - the best of its kind. The technology is similar in that it's engineered to be light and efficient, and the materials used are going to be exotic including carbon fibre and titanium. There's just less of it - fewer exotic components to complete the whole machine. Do you see what I mean?

Of course, more people can afford the £4k bike than can afford the £120k Ferrari! But it's whatever floats your boat.

Crapaud62

Funny but the top of the range Cannondales have been around £4,000 for the last 7 years.

My first expensive one was a SV4000. Lasted for years and mate I sold it to has just ridden across Mexico on it.

Got a carbon fibre Raven when they came out as it looked flash. Rode it from Prague to Budapest in the worst flooding ever seen. Bike was seriously tired after the 1,000 kms even though less than month old. Contacted Cannondale and they gave me a new higher spec Jekyl to replace it with.

At one point I had over £10ks worth of Cannondales in my garage but I'm trying to cut down a bit these days.

If you've got the money why not? But equally you can have fun on a £50 bike. As stated above its the same with cars, £120k Ferrari or £500 banger and everything in between. You can have fun whatever you spend, it just you're attitude that matters.

MarkO

The insurance valuation for my 8-y-o hardtail is about £250. Still have plenty of fun on it, and especially enjoy overtaking people on their £3k DH bikes on the descents.