Originally Posted by
LTT777
I think those are both pretty solid buys for the money. I do have a couple of questions though. How far is your commute to work? And when you say a ride in the forrest or mountains what do you mean by that exactly? Are you intending to do technical single track trails? If not and only intend to do some riding in the woods I may suggest a cyclocross bike instead. They are much faster overall and still very capable of handling just about anything in the woods. They definitely make riding technical trails an entirely different experience and generally require a more skilled rider to navigate them compared to MTB. But if you aren't intending to do anything overly technical and your commute is more than 5 miles each way, I'd bet a cyclocross bike would better suit your riding desires.
With that said I have a MTB (similar to the ones you listed, entry level hard tail 29er) and Cyclocross bike and use them both quite a bit and don't really want to give up either. But if I had to have only one for both city and MTBing it would be cyclocross for sure.
Thank you for your swift reply.
My commute is about 10km but around 1/3 is through a forest and kinda labyrint way (under tunnel, little passage, downhil, uphil etc.). I looked at some cyclocross but I don't like the handles. I tried before few bikes with those "horn" handles and I hated it. I much prefer the straight "normal" handles as its more comfortable for me. I don't know what else is different but those "horn" handles are huge turn off for me.
So, if they are solid then which one is better? One has 100mm front vs 80mm front and also 27speeds vs 24speeds. Does that mean that the Marin is better?
What am I missing, please?
I do not do technical riding but I would be more than happy to try it. Afterall, this bike is meant to introduce me to things
