I am new to this forum but I did quite a bit of reading of it before I recently purchased my new Mountain Bike. Thanks for all of the great info

I used to ride my mountain bike quite a bit back about 15 years ago but most recently had been mostly a "roady". I've been kinda board riding my road bike lately so I decided that it was time to update my mountain bike equipment. I have kids that are 9 and 12 and they've been dying to do some trail riding so I needed to get something to keep up with them.

Since I really was pretty clueless on what to buy, I scoured every shop in the Denver Metro area looking, talking and riding everything in the $400-600 range. What I concluded was that everything in that range was soooo close that I had a hard time telling the difference. I really liked the Specialized Rockhopper base model for about $450 at the local dealer. On a whim, I decided to check out a Performance store not too far from me and they had a boat load of selection in the $500 area and were clearing out all of their 2005 inventory. I spotted an Ironhorse Maverick SE bike that caught my eye and after a couple test rides, it was equal to the Rockhopper in ride and fit -- because of the sale, it was roughly equal in price as well (about $20 more -- regular price was $649). My gut still said Rockhopper but my logic told me to buy the bike with the best component set -- clearly the Ironhorse.

Here's what is on it:

FRAME: 6061 aluminum
FORK: Manitou Splice Elite 100mm
HANDLEBAR: Alloy Low Rise /31.8 clamp
STEM: TruVativ® XR 5 degree
HEADSET: Zero Stack Threadless
BB: TruVativ® Powerspline
CRANK: TruVativ® ISO Flow
RINGS: 44/32/22T
PEDAL: Alloy Platform
CHAIN: Shimano® HG-73
SEAT: WTB® Rocket V Comp
SEATPOST: Alloy Micro Adjust
F. HUB: Alloy QR/32H
R. HUB: Shimano® ALLOY QR 32H
F. DER: Shimano® Deore
R. DER: SRAM® X.7
SHIFTER: SRAM® X.7 Trigger
CASSETTE: SRAM PG-950, 9spd 11-32t
BRAKES: Hayes® MX-2 mechanical w/ 6" rotor
BRAKE LEVER: Avid® FR-5
RIM: WTB® Speed Disc 32H
SPOKE: 14G stainless black
TIRES: IRC® Mythos 2.1

Essentially, it had better components for every major bike part. I rode it today on a trail with my kids and it was fantastic. I don't know all that much about Ironhorse so I'd appreciate anyone's comments.

Thanks again !! Happy trails