Best full suspension mountain bike 1k budget

[King of Dings]

Me and Mrs King of Dings decided to renew the mountain bikes.

Good local bike shop reckons we need to spend minimum 1k for a good full suspension mountain bike.

Narrowed to two brands 'Trek' at1.2k and 'Giant' at 1.7k

Anybody got recommendations. Budget is 1k - 1.5k per bike.

Will be riden hard on mostly off-road, some jumps and lots of fast downhill.

[ALawson]

Better luck asking here.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&a...

[snotrag]

Your in the wrong forum (mods!), but the answer your going to get once its moved is - you need to be far, far more specific!

What kind of bike? XC? Trail?

What experience do you have, what have you tried?

[Herman Toothrot]

You don't need to spend that amount unless the pair of you plan on racing in the nationals, you can get some very good bikes for half those amounts from the likes of Chain Reaction.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Categories.aspx...

[rich_vw]

http://www.revolution-bikes.co.uk/ Ask for Matt he should b able help ya!

[prand]

Not trying to repeat myself, but have a look at Boardman's 2009 full suspension offerings. Highly regarded.

[Beyond Rational]

Buy the June issue of MBR - 6 full suspension bikes for under £1K reviewed, the Giant won it. Obviously try for yourself, but at least it gives you a benchmark.

[King of Dings]

Beyond Rational said:

Buy the June issue of MBR - 6 full suspension bikes for under £1K reviewed, the Giant won it. Obviously try for yourself, but at least it gives you a benchmark.

Thank you I will buy the mag today.

[mk1fan]

Oddly enough the latest What Mountain Bike has the same test and rated the Boardman above the Giant.

Both are very capable machines. However, Boardman don't currently do women specific bikes and I doubt the selection of these in Halfords is going to be great - not that it's a beacon of excellence in other shops. Giant do have a comprehensive and capable range of womens bikes as do Trek (who you initially mentioned). If you can find a bike shop that has both Trek and Giant (Evans springs to mind) then I recommend you go there and try a few bikes out. Remember, you can ask for the stem / bars / seat to be swapped if the OE items are not suited to you. I would suggest that your wife tries a 'womans' bike, as 'mens' bike don't fit women too well.

A 4-inch travel full sus bike will be well suited to about 80% of UK trails.

If you're buying full sus then spend £900 - £1000. Very very very few full sus bikes under this are functional - I can think of three that are - let alone worth the money.

If you buy hard tails instead then you can get very cabaple bikes from £500 up.

[King of Dings]

thanks everyone I really appreciate the guidance and advice.

I think I will try out Orange / Trek / Giant.

Mrs King of Dings doesn't care, so long as it looks 'cool' Not that she is into pretty bikes, she is faster and more daring than me downhill.

She once went so fast (I set off only 15 secs behind her) that I could not see her anywhere on the trail and thought she had gone through a hedge / into a ditch. In fact she was at the bottom waiting for me - and I am not slow.

Maybe I am getting old. My 10 year old beat up a fast minor incline on Sunday on his new Giant, think he inherited Mrs KOD fearlessness ( is that a word ?)

[chrisga]

mk1fan said:

I would suggest that your wife tries a 'womans' bike, as 'mens' bike don't fit women too well.

Just to confuse things further my OH bought a mens bike as she hated the cramped feel of most women specific designs a year ago. At the time we encountered shops saying why do you want to try a mans bike love and all that sort of stuff, but pressed on with trying to find any bike that fitted well.
She ended up buying a scott scale, probably one of the most stretched out bikes out there! And in last months issue of WMB they reviewed some ladies bikes and gave Scott the thumbs up for not altering the geometry from the mens frame. Needless to say the OH feels quite vindicated in the choice, not least because a magazine review agreed with everything she said about ladies bikes and some women finding them cramped but because it was the best fitting for her after we visited as many shops as possible and tried loads of different bikes/and even brands for size!!! So I guess what I am saying is dont rule anything out and as others have said if the frame is right but needs the stem, bars or seat tweaking dont be afraid to ask!

[garylythgoe]

Cube AMS Comp, or AMS 100, any of them (theres about 3-4 flavours of the AMS 100).