I'm trying to get into the sport. My area isn't the greatest for skating, now that there are so many anti-this, anti-that laws. I would spend my tax refund on wheels for my civic, but I got to thinking, it runs great already, and my only hobby other than cars is paintballing. Just trying to diversify my interests I guess. My question is, what brands are good for a novice? My friend has a nice Mongoose, but it cost him like 2500 bucks. Ideally it would have full suspension. Right now I have an old trek without any suspension, but from what I've heard, trek is mainly known for touring bikes.

 

Most good mountain bikes that won't break easily will cost a bit. Plus regardless of what you get, cheap or expensive, if you take it off road into mountains and whatnot there will be plenty of upkeep. I definitely wouldn't go under $1500 for a full suspension bike. You'll be lucky to find anything good for under $2000 anyway. You could probably find a good Marin for under 2k though. If you don't go full suspension tho you can get one for a lot less.

 

I see... How critical is rear suspension?

 

Depends on what you'll be doing with it. If it's just gonna be a trail bike you don't really need rear suspenstion. Full suspension bikes are more for stuff like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu2Qqi9bzkc

And I doubt as a novice you'll be doing stuff like that haha.

I could be wrong tho, but really.. if you're just gonna go trail riding it's a nice comfort but really not necessary.

 

rear suspension seems to be all the rage but you don't need it. I'm a big guy and I've gotten 6ft of air off drops and jumps with my front suspension XC bike. (I did bend the bottom bracket landing wrong, but never messed up the frame.)

The best thing to do is get a hardtail with low end shimano parts, a good front shock, disc brakes, and sturdy rims.

A LOT of the expensive stuff for bikes is just lighter. At best they have performance bonuses that you wouldn't notice as a novice and at worst they are more fragile.

I'd recommend buying a bike like a Giant Yukon and setting aside some money to upgrade the chainrings, hand grips, buy a rollamajig, and buy the book Zinn and the Art of Mountainbike Maintenance.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't go under the $500 mark for a hard tail. I'd Personally go for a Felt or Marin, but for $500-700 or so you wont notice much of a difference brand to brand. Some of them use different disc brakes or make thier frames a little different, but like he said as a novice you probably wont notice much of a difference.

Felt: http://www.feltracing.com/08/product...6&pid=8761

Marin: http://www.marinbikes.com/bicycles_2...cat_trail.html

Marin is pretty much my brand of choice for any bike, I love thier bikes. One of thier full suspension mountain bikes won Bike of The Year this year too.

 

this guy i used to work with until he got firedused to brag about his bike he said "ellsworth" were the best out. very expensive though. even buying a used frame is about 1500.

 

^^ the suspension fork is going to be the biggest difference between bikes in that range, read reviews and find one you can run into a couple trees with, even if it's a tad heavier. My Bomber fork is the only on my 02 rainier that I haven't broken besides the frame.

 

Right now I have a Trek 800 frame, with shimano gears and such. It does not have any suspension, and no disk brakes. Would it be fine to just install disk brakes and shocks? The frame says chrome moly on it, which I don't really know what to make of. The bike feels pretty light already.

 

Chromoly? That's a type of alloy, it's what the frame is made out of. I wouldn't reccomend using a chromoly frame for mountain biking. Chromoly doesn't take abuse very well. You don't want a really lightweight bike for trail riding/mountain biking. You want something that can take a lot of abust and misuse. Trees, branches, rocks, water, mud, etc are all gonna be smashing, beating and getting on and into the bike. It doesn't matter how well you treat it or how easy you try to take it all this stuff will eventually happen so you'll want a heavier bike that can take some abuse. Lightweight bikes are for street and city riding.