Mountain Biking - The overly enthusiastic new mountain biker needs help on a bike selection

Hello all,

I've been reading these forums for the past couple of days, and know that a lot of people here can be very informative and/or experienced. Considering my knowledge of mountain biking is relatively slim, and my experiences limited I wanted everyones opinion on a new bike. I'm planning a whitewater rafting trip (south american river) over labor day weekend, and thought i would take full advantage of having the time off work and school to go mountain biking as well. I'm looking to buy something competative but nothing to expensive nor cheap. A few bikes I'm looking at are these 1) Rocky Mountain Vertex 10 http://bikes.com/bikes/2006/vertex/vertex-10.aspx and 2) Specialized Rockhopper Comp Disc http://specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?spid=12990&bikeTab=techspec . This bike will be used, like i said earlier, for trails around the american river but primarily for dirt trails around a local national forest (Los Padres/RedRock). I have a large build, 6ft1, 220lbs. The rocky mountain vertex is going for $900 (discounted from $1200) at a local shop, and I haven't paid a visit to any specialized bike distributors yet.

Thanks in advance for any opinions, suggestions, or input,



Fuserchris

though the specialized is very fancy looking, but I would pick the rocky mountain. rocky mountain engineers some of the best frames (in my opinion). even though it's not hand crafted, but it is hand built. they do a lot of research on specific-ness in building a perfect frame.

i would get the rocky mountain and slowly upgrade to higher end parts.

I think either of the two are good bikes, but why limit yourself to just these two. For your budget, there are a lot of good bikes out there.

I am a fan of Specialized bikes, but heck, I like ALL bikes, and with the current crop of new ones out there, there is hardly a bad one in the bunch.

You should also seriously consider leftover models. There are still a lot of '06s on the showroom floors with '07 coming in. You could probably also find a leftover '05 here and there for a good buy.

I don't know how many 06's are still floating around, at least for Specialized. I went to every Specialized shop in the area (4 of them) looking for an '06 Hardrock Comp, and couldn't find one. They had a few odd sizes left in a few models, but that was it. They all told me that they were expecting the 07's to be flooding in within a week or two. I ended up getting an 07.

Which other bikes would you suggest taking a look at? I think $900 ( +/- a few bucks) is really my budget. I'm also considering an Orange ev6. The only bike of these 3 that I've rode is the rocky mountain, and was amazed by how light it was. From what I've been reading it sounds like maybe the rocky mountain would be a better invest long term, but the rockhopper has better components overall. Is this a fair assessment?



Fuserchris

http://www.performancebike.com/shop/profile.cfm?SKU=22389&subcategory_ID=3050

Not a bad package!

I don't agree with the above recommendation of a bike. I think you'd get a far better bike if you bought the Rocky Mountain because it's higher end for a good price.

have you looked at hte kona caldera ?
http://www.konaworld.com/shopping_cart/FrontEnd/Products/product_detail.aspx?productid=332&parentid=253

I did check out a couple of Konas, they seemed a bit heavy but that could of been in relation to the fact that these were a lower end bike then what I've been looking at. I did find a couple of cannondales, and the bikes front suspension is interesting and something I havne't seen before. I have to read up on that technology, but from a test ride I wasn't all that impressed with the bike overall. It made a lot of noise and the shifters weren't very user friendly (hard/thin and incorrect placement)



Fuserchris

Here's a list I've been making. http://www.bikecoalition.com/unt?id=98 May give you more options.

Checkout the GT Zaskar Expert. It's a thousand dollars worth of bike that can be had for around 700 and then you can spend some on upgrades and still be within your budget.

test rode an 06 rockhopper comp yesterday, and it rode like a dream. My only complaints about the bike is that it felt a bit on the heavier side and also the front shocks, I believe rockshox 318, didn't fully lockout. Outside of those 2 things it was a wonderful spin, dream blue is an amazing color as well. Also saw rode a lower-end 06 stump jumper and was impressived by it also, ride feel and also the bike felt really light. However, I'm not sure if the weight difference is all that apparent on the bikes of similiar size (RH=21, SJ=18).

Saw a couple of pictures of the 07 Rockhopper Pro Disc ($1010 retail) and it looks amazing, mango orange :)



Fuserchris