plumberman

I have been riding a Mariah MTB since the late 80's and am looking to modernize.I ride mostly paved and gravel paths with dirt trails whenever I can. I have been looking at Bikes Direct.com and they have a Motobecane 700 Ht for $500.
This bike has disc brakes and I don't know if adding disc brakes pushes the price up enough to have the manufacturer lower the quality of the rest of the parts to keep the price down.
Is this a reasonable price for a bike of this type with these components?
I read the mechanics forum all the time for info on troubles but do not know much about Motobecane.
Any advice is much appreciated

bfloyd

I recently picked up the HT 300. It is their entry level and I changed many of the components with higher quality ones that I had. I find the frame to be of higher quality than most in the similar price range.

Disk brakes are very popular these days and are said to be unmatched. Unfortuanetly the HT 300 didn't come with disks but the frame is disk ready and I plan to change in the near future.

I think you will enjoy the HT 700.

koolade365

Bfloyd,

I know the 08 300ht is disk compatible but what about the 07 and older? They changed the tail of the frame up a little.

bfloyd

Yes, the '08 has the disk mounts but the '07 and older do not. You can get the '07 model very cheap right now on ebay . . .

jxoxexy

This disc brakes that come on the 500HT I just purchased is by no means a good brake. I'm still breaking it in but rim Vbrakes can stop better than the ones on my bike...not sure how much longer it'll take before these brakes get any better.

Disc brakes have levels, from brand to brand and model to model, these came with the entry level variety.