AraJudge

I have a 2009 Kona Blast and I absolutely love this bike. Not much I can really compare it to other then other peoples bikes I have ridden that are cheap and not meant for hard riding. I ride my bike pretty hard and it has yet to give out on me. For my second bike though I was looking into getting a full suspension bike. I have read a bit about these bikes but I wanted some real people opinions haha.

I know that full suspension is going to be more expensive but what is a good price range?

With that question asked I have read about there being three different types of FS bikes. Difference being the amount of travel the front and back shocks have. I would suspect that more travel would equal more money?

I would like to use this bike for downhill/freeride riding so I want a long travel bike but I also don't want to spend $3000 on a bike either.

Lastly I'm sure there are multiple FS manufactures that are great. Is Kona one of them? I really like there bikes that I have ridden but I have never ridden a FS of theirs.

ColinL

You said a lot of things there. Let's start with the piece I put in bold.

You can actually ride just about any bike, anywhere you please. In some cases you'll need to walk around or through an obstacle that the bike can't do, or that you lack the skill to take the bike through. (The latter happens to me most often. )

So, you could conceivably ride downhill and freeride on what you have. If you've tried that, you probably know that it's asking a lot, and it beats you up, and you skip all the big jumps and drops entirely. If you want to hit all that stuff with gusto, you need downhill or freeride bike-- end of story. Those bikes are expensive and heavy. So it would hurt your wallet and it wouldn't be very feasible to ride on normal trails due to the inefficient long-travel suspension, frame geometry and bike weight.

And you'd need every bit of $3,000 to get a decent *used* DH/FR bike.

Bikes do get cheaper when you go with less travel, to an extent. Any new FS bike has at least 100mm travel and they cost about the same from there to 120-130mm. Usually these are "XC" bikes that pedal well and steer fast. They aren't ideal for gravity riding for a lot of reasons BUT it would be better than your hardtail. You could spend $1,500-3,000 and up on a new bike, and probably no less than $750 for a good quality used one.

Then you have this huge range of bikes in between XC and DH called trail, all-mountain, enduro and so on. They generally start in the low $2,000 range and go up. They can be ridden for lift service downhill/freeride and they will work a LOT better than your hardtail, but you will break stuff if you try the things you see on XGames.

Where are you intending to ride? Maybe I should've started with that... it would help narrow down just how burly of a bike you need.

Mountain Mitch

Many good bike stores will rent high quality FS bikes for a weekend or so at a pretty reasonable rate. I'd suggest that you try out a few bikes. That's how I found my current Specialized Stumpjumper FSR.

Full suspension bikes are not clearly divided into full mountain, downhill and cross country. Rather it is a spectrum and a given bike will fall somewhere between the various lines. My bike is on the cross country side of the line but I can tell you I have and do ride some pretty gnarly stuff with it. But there are spots that I will walk when I'd ride if I had a DH type of bike. On the other hand, there are lots of places that I ride up that I couldn't ride if I had a DH bike.

In other words, all bikes are a compromise. Try to find one that will do well what you like best. Of course, that may change over time....

AraJudge

I was mostly wondering if "$3000" was going to be what I was looking at not just the price of the best DH bikes around hehe. I see now that is what im looking at spending. I might aim more XC and deal seeing as I don't think I could drop that much dough on a bike haha. But then again I am very torn. When I ride I tend to ride trails that are pre-made and light as I have a HT and hitting the rocky stuff beats me up.. don't get me wrong sometimes I still do it . When I am out riding though I see my own trails that I want to take but just seam like I would end up beating my self up too much.

As for where I ride I rode the mountains of the Bay Area for some time, I now live in Southern California and haven't really done any exploring down there. I have done a little hiking with a friend though and I have found a couple of places I would like to ride and it would be rough lol. I don't want the ride to be so smooth and easy that all the fun is taken out of it... but I also don't want to feel like im riding a horse trying to buck me off, and getting damn close to succeeding haha.

I have a friend back home who rides a FS bike and I definitely climbed the hills with more ease then him. Coming back down though he seamed to have an easier time. I like the rides up as they are a good work out, for that I can take the hard tail and stay easy on the way down. If I had the FS I would just do the opposite, which sometimes I would very much so like to do. Also the walk up gives you more time to spot your path and take the adventure, spot my entrance into no-mans-land.

ColinL

I agree with Mitch about renting bikes to try out, just make sure you reserve/pay in advance to get the right size. Sometimes it's just about convenience and making the sale (or rental, in this case)-- this summer at Copper Mountain, my two brothers-in-law were given the same size Fuel Ex 5s from the rental company, 21.5". One of them is 5'11" and the other is 6'6".

AraJudge

I will definitely have to look into renting out some bikes to try them out. See if I really want to spend that much money on a bike hehe.

Daspydyr 

The definition of DECENT is subjective. You might set a price range of what you think you really want to spend and then ask what falls into that price range. This group seems to have magic powers when researching CLs, Ebay and other sights.

I's not a DHer, but it seems you want real quality if you will be "shredding the GNAR" at breakneck speeds.

dminor 

In some ways, it's a shame that a whole class of bikes has disappeared that would have fit the OP's needs nicely: those burly freeriders that were designed around a single-crown fork but had 6-7" travel, could handle a dual-crown fork if you wanted one, could be abused mercilessly, yet you could outfit with a triple-ring setup and still ride to the top of the hill. The Yeti AS-X, Santa Cruz Bullit, Ellsworth Joker, Kona Coiler, even the lowly, bargain-basement Weyless 67 all come to mind. Yeah, I know, the new enduro-class machines pretty much fill that niche now; but not at the level of simplicity and burliness that those machines did. [/waxingnostalgic]