Hi, I need help buying a new bike.

I haven't been mountain biking in some time now, probably about a year now. Partly due to the fact that my bike is an old ( about 1998 ) Kona Firemountain. I think its time I bought a new bike.

I have heard about something called "auto-lockout", wherethe shock tells the difference between rider input and track input and locks the shock out accordingly. This sounds good because ( from what I hear ) it combines the effeciency of a hardtail ( which I like ) with the travel of a full suspension bike ( which I also like ). Can someone tell me about this "auto-lockout". Is it fairly common/expensive? And can I buy a ( cheap ) frame and put auto-lockout shocks on it?

Anyway, I don't want to spend to much money and I don't mind a secondhand bike thats a couple years old. But I would like a bike with a full suspension and disk brakes and a fair bit of travel but not a downhill bike.

Any input is welcome, thanks.

You might get more help if you use a subject line that made more sense.

Also posting in the correct forum (Mountain Biking) might help.

That's a complicated question. I don't know very much about bike suspension and the more that I learn about it the more I find out that I don't know. I feel that my understanding of bike suspension is going backwards.

Everything on a bike works together and affects how the other parts work. I doubt that simply adding an auto-lockout shock to a bike that wasn't designed around it is going to work very well.

read the stickies on the mountainbike forum. Check the reviews on MTBrev

start with useful thread titles

It's called an inertial valve. It works by keeping the shock valve closed when a downward pressure is put on the wheel like when pedal. If the wheel experiences an impact moving upward, the valve will unseat and allow the shock to travel. It's a pretty slick idea and works well (I borrowed someone's bike once and, unfortunately didn't buy that model which would have saved me lots of headache ).

However the bad news is that the technology is only available on Specialized Epic and Stumpjumper FSR Expert. The cheapest bike you can get it on starts at $2200 and goes up from there. One Craigslist, Epics still go for around $1500, used.