Mountain Biking - Need help choosing bike

Its between TREK 4300 or Gary Fisher Advance. Only sticking point i have between the two is the wheels for each Trek has Bontrager Caminos and GF has Matrix 550s. What do you all think?

I might as well be the first to say it, its going to be said anyway.

Go ride them both and pick the one that feels the best.

i second that

The specs and geomertry look very similar. It's a toss up from that point of view. It really will come down to which one you like to ride or which one is cheaper. Both those being equal, choose the best looking.

The one thing that has always attracted me to GFs is that they tend to have longer top tubes than any other brand's comparable bike. If you are tall and/or long-torso'd, I would let that be the tie-breaker.

both the bikes will be identical on the frame front as gary fisher are owned by trek. the only difference will be the components. ride each one and see which feels right.

gary fisher and trek are the same thing with diffirent names.

feel is the only thing that i would be looking for between the two.

personally i dont like trek becaseu all of their components are bontrager, i dont like that. i feel you get more out of a company that doesnt get all their components from one company.

Well the problem with me test riding them both is the bike shop does not have them in stock i have to order them so that isnt an option. I like the looks of the Advance better but i weigh 240 pounds and am just starting to ride so dont know much about bikes yet.
I want to get the one with good wheels so i dont bend em going off sweet jumps. My buddy says the Trek wheels are much better then the ones on the Advance. Is this true?

Trek does not have the gary fisher Genesis frame like some of the fisher models like the HKEK and others.

Steve

i would go with gf because of the longer top tube and shorter chainstays. i really like the genesis geometry on those frames