BugsInMyTeeth

Oi,

Search function be damned...

Could anyone recommend a few very sturdy full suspension X/C MTBs for a dude 260-280-ish?

sstorkel

What's your budget?

BugsInMyTeeth

1-5k?

skilsaw

Buy a full suspension Huffy from Wally World and put the $4.8 k into fast women, strong liquor, and waste the rest.

vesteroid

5k puts you well into the upper ranges of most bikes.

Personally if you are serious about spending money on a nice mtb...i would look more in the 2000-3000 range and go hit up all my local shops and let them tell you what they have that meets your needs.

Most any bike is going to hold your weight, but at that weight, i doubt you see any noticable difference in performance between a 2000 and a 5000 bike

ETilton

I rode a Santa Cruz Superlight with about $1k in upgrades to fine tune fit, gears, etc and to upgrade the rear shock so I wouldn't max it out every time I dropped a foot or two once I hit 240. It was an awesome XC bike and while I bought it when I was 210, I rode it regularly into the 250's (I was bulking up big time for college rugby at the time).

Edit: I bought the bike because I was looking for an XC bike that could hold me (all my cycling friends are 140-180ish) and a kayaking buddy suggested it to me (he had one, he's a good 250)

sstorkel

Cross-country suspension components often max-out around 250lbs. They'll likely work for a heavier rider, but if they break it may be difficult to get a warranty repair.

In the $1000-5000 range, I'll make a couple of suggestions:

1) I really like bikes that use the DW-link suspension configuration. Pedal-induced bobbing bugs the heck out of me! DW-link minimizes bob better than anything else I've ridden. The only downside I can see is that there's a bit more chain slap when descending. Not sure if that's endemic to the design or just a peculiarity of the DW-link bikes I've ridden. Some of the virtual pivot point designs are pretty good, some are terrible (ex: my old BMC Tailfox).

2) Buy a bike with a Fox fork. I say this because I used to own a bike with a Rock Shox fork. It failed on the first ride! When I took the fork apart, I was surprised at just how primitive the internal design was. I was also surprised by how painful the warranty process was. I don't know for a fact that Fox is any better in either respect, but it would be hard to be worse than Rock Shox!

3) Test-ride before buying. And I don't mean a parking-lot test-ride. Ideally, you want to test the bike on the terrain where you intend to ride it. This is especially true for full-suspension bikes! Several of my local shops will allow you to rent a bike for $50-75/day and apply that cost toward the purchase if you decide to ride a bike. Other arrange a couple of "demo days" each year where you can test-ride bikes for free.

4) Consider a 29er. I'm not a big fan of 29ers...yet... but many people are. If the trails you ride aren't super-tight and twisty, you may find that a 29er works well. I love them on more flowing and open terrain, where that big wheel will easily roll over just about anything. On tight switchbacks, where I struggle on a 26er, they can be a chore.

In terms of brands to consider: Ibis (Mojo) and Pivot (Mach 4, Mach 5.7, Mach 429) both use DW-link and get generally good reviews. They're also pricey, as are all DW-link bikes. I own a Specialized Stumpjumper FSR. It's a nice bike, but Specialized seems to have changed the suspension design on the newer versions so I can't say how they compare. I used to be a big fan of the their Pitch all-mountain bike but it's been discontinued. The Giant Anthem gets lots of rave reviews, though I wasn't impressed when I test-rode one a couple of years ago. The brakes were terrible, which might have been specific to my well-thrashed test bike, and the suspension wasn't great on the mid-level model I rode.

brawlo

Consider a trip over to the mtbr forums. There's a clydesdale section in there. I was toying with the idea of getting something similar myself. I have an interest in road riding & club racing and track racing as well, and in the end, the cost to put together something suitable to handle my 115kg frame was prohibitive in the end for me. From what I read however, there are a small selection of frames that are considered appropriate, and the big factor is the ratio on the rear shock. There are also a handfull of forks that are good too. Irrespective of all this, there are a few out of the box bikes that were ok, I can't recall those now, but definitely expect to break stuff on an out of the box bike. Do your research to know what you should be replacing broken components with.

magohn

ha!
Im selling mine - never really rode the bike as it was a bike I should not have bought in the first place - Im more a road guy:

https://classifieds.mtbr.com/showprod...ondition&cat=3