First MTB for 15yr old son.
Discussion
Of all the sections on the PH forum this is the least likely for me to contribute due to complete lack of knowledge. The last bike i had was a Raleigh Super Tuff Burner (first time round).
My son is 15 yrs old and has suddenly decided to give his xbox & PS3 chance to cool down. A couple of his mates are regular MTB riders and my son wants to give it a go.
We are looking to buy him a bike that will be good to learn on but won't leave him to far behind if he starts to enjoy the sport. My initial feeling is to buy a good second hand MTB as people seem to look after the 'expensive when new' bikes? I'm pretty sure that somebody talked to me about 'specialised' MTB - after a quick online search they look expensive. So the brief would be :
He is 6 foot so what size frame/wheels ?
cheaper new or better used?
Budget may be up to £350 ish...gulp
We approx 7 miles from Delamere Forest which is were his mates seem to go - so more off road than road would be fine.
Meanwhile i will have a search on the forum.
My son is 15 yrs old and has suddenly decided to give his xbox & PS3 chance to cool down. A couple of his mates are regular MTB riders and my son wants to give it a go.
We are looking to buy him a bike that will be good to learn on but won't leave him to far behind if he starts to enjoy the sport. My initial feeling is to buy a good second hand MTB as people seem to look after the 'expensive when new' bikes? I'm pretty sure that somebody talked to me about 'specialised' MTB - after a quick online search they look expensive. So the brief would be :
He is 6 foot so what size frame/wheels ?
cheaper new or better used?
Budget may be up to £350 ish...gulp
We approx 7 miles from Delamere Forest which is were his mates seem to go - so more off road than road would be fine.
Meanwhile i will have a search on the forum.
We are going to call in at The Bike Factory in Chester at the weekend and then pop next door to Specialized.
He has been doing some more 'research' with his friends. It seems a couple of them have Specialized which he seems to feel comfortable on. It seems that he needs a 19 inch frame size.
What is the difference with having 26 or 29 inch wheels?
He has been doing some more 'research' with his friends. It seems a couple of them have Specialized which he seems to feel comfortable on. It seems that he needs a 19 inch frame size.
What is the difference with having 26 or 29 inch wheels?
Thread Update : We picked up his new Specilized Rockhopper in black/white/orange this afternoon. We managed to get a really good deal even on the latest model. The Spcialized dealer in Chester gave us 20% discount. They also gave us 20% discount on their acc range excluding helmets.
We got it home today and have a slight problem with it. I removed the 2 hex bolts so that we could fit the bottle carrier. The higher of the 2 bolts went back in no problem however the lower bolt has got half way and stopped. It seem that what ever nut (?) fitted inside the frame has come loose meaning we can't tighten the hex bolt up. Its just spinning around half tightened. The crazy thing is that because its inside the frame there is no way of getting to it, should it be welded to the inside of the frame?
Does anybody know a solution? Otherwise its going back to the shop in the morning, I fear they will have to order a new bike which could take a few days.
We got it home today and have a slight problem with it. I removed the 2 hex bolts so that we could fit the bottle carrier. The higher of the 2 bolts went back in no problem however the lower bolt has got half way and stopped. It seem that what ever nut (?) fitted inside the frame has come loose meaning we can't tighten the hex bolt up. Its just spinning around half tightened. The crazy thing is that because its inside the frame there is no way of getting to it, should it be welded to the inside of the frame?
Does anybody know a solution? Otherwise its going back to the shop in the morning, I fear they will have to order a new bike which could take a few days.
We took it back to them this morning. It seems they are very easy to cross thread. They are some sort of threaded rivet which needs a special tool to fit them and remove them. The tool was on loan to another branch so they will refit when the bike goes in for a first service, they made a tempory fix which seems OK. The manager of the shop says he had cross threaded one on his own bike last week so he needs to repair his own aswell. They gave us some free chain lube for our trouble this morning so we are quite happy.
Thanks for your posts.
Thanks for your posts.
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