I’m looking to purchase a mountain bike and would like to know the best deals for under $400 US. Any feedback from owners of bikes in this price range would be of great help. I would also like to know if their are any good web sites devoted to mountain bike reviews. Like Mike said, read mtbr.com with a grain of salt. If everyone says a product is great except one clown who said he was doing drops from the roof of his house and the product broke and after repeatedly trying to get a new part for free, and not getting one, he’d never buy the part again, don’t listen to the guy.

Downhillers will trash cross country parts for being weak, and cross country riders will trash downhill parts for being heavy. Toss out the glowing reviews (especially when the reviewer says that they “just bought the part” ) and toss out the worst reviews (unless there are a lot of them), and you’ll probably get a good idea about the product.

I have a nice Specialized HardRock, cost $300 near enough. It has mediocre components by most standards, a rigid fork, and a seat like a cememt pillow, but if you include a few tools, helmet and a eat that fits my butt better, it still comes to under $400. The kid just got a newer version of the same thing with a sus fork, 350+/- Having said that, I rode a $80 Murray “Mountain Bike” for 15 years and it did fine except for the problems yours seems to have.

This is a topic that every manufacturer thinks about all the time. Mountain bikes are big sellers because they’re fashionable, just as ‘choppers’ were when I was a kid, and stingrays before that. Most MTB’s sold are never or almost never ridden on dirt. The biggest question, to me, is, where and how much will you end up riding? If you are unfamiliar with bicycling, your best bet is probably not to spend too much. If you end up not riding much, you’re not out much. Bike manufacturers don’t like this kind of advice. OTOH, if you catch the ‘bug’, you’ll want something better, anyway. Not cyclists think $100K cars are way cool, but laugh at the thought of spending a mere $1K on a bike.

But, if you get serious, you’ll most likely end up spending close to this. So, to try to answer your question: it sounds like you want a road bike. They’re lighter and more efficient on smooth and almost smooth surfaces. You can always put more aggressive (and wider) tires on it, if the terrain calls for it.Mountain bikes on pavement don’t make sense, unless maybe you’re only out for a slow ride in the park. Hybrids are great for city riding, particularly in the case where the city streets aren’t well-maintained. I had to give up riding my roadbike around Boston, it was getting trashed from hitting and hopping potholes at speed.

A mountain bike, while slower and more difficult to ride, easily takes that kind of abuse. In spite of being unpopular, cyclocross bikes are very good for knocking around town.Far better than most of what are being sold as hybrids. Unless your roads look like they suffered a bombing run, a road bike with wider tires is probably all that you need. Many road bikes will take tires as large as 28mm which should be enough tire to protect rims from the occasional pot hole. Of course Any bike with down turned bars is so de’ mode’ these days. I’m the same guy who has to suffer through comments like “Kewl, retro!” and “Hey look at the bike with all the antique Campi parts!” every time I wander into the local bike shop so don’t listen to me. If my tours of bike racks is any indication, most cyclists now seem to require a mountain bike with knobbies, handlebar extensions and a suspension fork to ride a few blocks to class even on freshly paved roads.

I’m building a habitat for mountain bikes. Nothing but sweet singletrack, interspaced with fast fireroads, wild flowers to escort my climb to the heavens and a set of whoop-de-doos to launch me on my descents. the sweet scent of redwoods fill the air, a babbling brooke to rest nearby and have lunch with my riding buddies. the temperatures in the upper 60′s to 70′s, just enough to work up a sweat (goes with the wildflowers you know) and evaporate in thin air or the poor guy who happened to follow me too close; in which case it would evaporate into his nostrils.

The sun peeking through the trees and lighting my way. Man, this is mountain bike heaven. And guess what? NO MIKEY!!!! Yes, no doubt! I DO build my own habitat every single time I hop on my mountainbike. That’s what’s so great about mountainbiking, and that’s what Mike will never understand. We humans need our space to run wild, too, and without that what’s the point?

I’m sorry animals have such a bad seal, but as far as I’m concerned, so do we humans. 2 hour drive just to get somewhere worth riding? I want sweet single track right out my door! More mountainbike habitat, more mountainbike habitat… Nyah nyah nyah! Over here, I have singletrack coming out of my nose (well, almost, but you get the idea?) 2 hours driving to get there? Nah, more like 2 minutes riding. Singletrack heaven. And so few to share it with. My riding buddies, a few occasional hikers, the moose, Bambi. And the situation is very much like this all over the country.

Yesterday, while strolling through the Costco-PriceClub discount store, I found a couple of Cannondale mountain bikes. They had a single shock fork and the thick tubing and were great looking bikes. They were offered for $700 and $800. I didn’t write down the frame numbers. What do you think? Are these good bikes? Are these good values? How do I know if they’ll fit me? Would only a chump buy a bike from Costco-PriceClub? Or… is this such a great value that I should risk the wrath of my family to buy one? Yesterday, while strolling through the Costco-PriceClub discount store, I found a couple of Cannondale mountain bikes.

They had a single shock fork and the thick tubing and were great looking bikes. They were offered for $700 and $800. I didn’t write down the frame numbers. Three months ago I paid around $700 for an F400 from my LBS. In F400 ‘F’ means Front suspension. The same bike without suspension would be an M400. The numbers are an indication of the quality of components a 200 or 300 will have minimal quality components. A ’1000′ is top-of-the-line. What do you think? Are these good bikes? IMHO Cannondale makes a very good Aluminum (‘thick tubing’) bike. I own two Are these good values? With out the model numbers I can’t tell you. You now have enough information to answer that question for yourself. How do I know if they’ll fit me? Simple test: Stand over the frame with both feet flat on the ground. Now, pick the bike off the ground until the top tube comes in contact with your crotch.

See the end for a proposed trial by ordeal between the friends of mountain bikes and the friends of horses. It may be unsporting of me to spoil a good discussion with associated flames by doing arithmetic, but here are some facts. My daughter the horse doctor tells me that 12.5 square inches is a good figure for the area of a horse’s hoof in contact with the ground, and 1,000 pounds is a good figure for the weight of a horse. Therefore, a standing horse puts 20 pounds per square inch on the ground. The pressure is larger when the horse doesn’t have all four hoofs evenly on the ground.

The pressure on the ground of a bicycle is approximately the same as the tire pressure, say 30 pounds per square inch for a mountain bike. The tire flattens out until the weight of the bike and rider is equal to the tire pressure multiplied by the area. The pressure in the tire increases, but it can’t be much because of Boyle’s law PV = constant, and the volume of the air in the tire can’t change by a large ratio. Not a large difference. Moreover, while you can have lower tire pressure bikes you can’t do much about horses. Vehicles for operating on the Arctic tundra have tire pressures as low as 4 pounds per square inch. There is one possible observation.

It seems to me that hoof prints on wet ground are usually deeper than tire tracks. I tend to agree with the following This is not a valid comparison, unless you assume that the horse and a human(+bike) have the same weight, which is of course not true. Horses are a lot heaier. If you were to visit woodland near to myself in SE England, you will see bridleways that are constantly being churned up by horses, that are virtually impossible to navigate by persons on foot or mountain bike. You will see hoof prints, not bike prints in the faunaless, hardened, rutted ground. Last word from the horse doctor. The horse will be shod with steel horseshoes, so the area will be less until there has been some penetration of the ground. Therefore, the pressure will be larger. Actually, this suggests a trial by ordeal between the advocates of horses and the advocates of mountain bikes. The advocates of horses have their feet stepped on by horses and the advocates of mountain bikes have their run over by mountain bikes. I know which ordeal I’d choose to endure.

I too am a Moto biker. I love to ride my Motor bike. It is what I grew up doing. I had my first bike at age 7, a MR 50 and now I ride a tottaly tweeked out 1992 CR 125. To all who don’t know this bike is one of the worst trail eaters that their is. The nobbies on the tires are the size of a golf ball and the tire is wide indeed. I can if I choose to rip a pit in the ground that is 12 to 14 inches deep in a matter of seconds. I also can ripp through mud that is knee deep at about 20 k/h with out a problem. If I want to I can rouster tail up an incline of 30 degrees for as long as I like.

Yes I can take a nice trail and ripp it to shit in one go by and ruin it for all who desire to ride it latter. Just imagine me and 8 others doing this type of ridding on your trails. They would be killed for you and for me. I was raised to hate those bad motor bikers who kill trails and leave them that way. I admitt that I can rip up a trail and yes it is hard not to when a blast of your thottle can increes your speed from 5 k/h to about 40 k/h. But I also contest that I go back and repair my bobos the next day like many other motor bikers do. Infact someof the best trails in the bruce country in Ont. are their because of motor bike clubs, as well as snowmobile clubs. I know that the trails near my cottage are regulated. You must buy a licence plate for the trails and attach it to the bike.