So, I'm kind of on a budget, just to get that out there. Here is what I am going to be using my MTB bike MAINLY for.
I will be doing most urban area riding, with occasional easy trail riding, nothing too harsh on the bike. However, I would love to get a little crazy OCCASIONALLY. The trails I will mainly be doing are flat with some aggressive hills mainly dirt with varying off-road conditions. When not having fun with it, it will be my daily commuter back and forth to school/work.
With the above info, here are the two bikes I am debating on:
Diamondback Recoil 29er Mountain Bike
29" Mongoose Ledge 3.5 Men's Mountain Bike, White/Red - Walmart.com
They are both 29ers, I definitely want a 29er.
The Diamondback is 24 speed where the mongoose is 21 speed, to me, 3 gears really won't mean much, I don't think. I currently have an 18 speed Roadmaster full suspension from walmart, and it does quite well in terms of taking abuse. I am very used to the 18 speed, but I have always loved 21 speed.
For both the bikes, I will be upgrading the front fork with air suspension, obviously, buying the walmart one would allow me to do this more easily. I will probably also upgrade the rear shock with an air shock as well in the near future.
My current roadmaster, has a
horrible derailleur. I could NEVER get that thing tuned just right. If I ever did, one day out on the trial it was out of whack again. I mainly lived with it. But from the reviews, that mongoose seems to be pretty good for the price.
The rim and disk brakes to me are the same. I can manage with either one. I also read disk brakes will end up costing more in the long run due to bending rims and the cost of the pads. I rarely went through brake shoes on my current rim brake system on my Roadmaster.
Also, if anyone else has any other websites I could check out that have bikes around the 500 price range, that would be awesome.
Thanks everyone for your expertise!