Mountain Biking
 

I'm in the market for my first mountain bike, and I'm curious to see what bikes you guys think would be a good choice. I'm looking at the specialized rockhopper, and the Trek Marlin. I'm trying to keep the budget to under $1000 too. I'll be riding desert trails with a lot of rocks and the occasional jumps. Any input will help!

26" or 29"?

29

Yeah, I have real fresh advice having just bought full suspension Trek EX5 and Trek EX6 for the wife & I.

Find a way to get a full suspension instead of a hard tail. Before the new bikes, I rode a Trek hard-tail for 10 years and often had a hard time keeping up with buddies. At speed, hard tails have much less control bounding all over the place. I couldn't believe the difference of a full suspension bike. We got the EX5 for $1,300 new from Trek and that extra $300 is well worth it.

Full suspension 29'ers get closer to $2K and were out of our range also. But, I think you'd be far better off at 26" and FS.

Awesome Fun!

Where did you find the ex 5 for that cheap?

Scott, Scale or Spark

craigslist or head on over to pinkbike.com and check out the classifieds. You can find some sweet deals with some quality components used. You get robbed buying bikes new.

^True on new bikes. Spend $1,000 and get a several year old full suspension.

That said, we bought ours at a Christmas sale $200 off this price:
http://trekbicyclesuperstore.com/pro...5-130727-1.htm
Trek store direct, San Diego location: http://trekbicyclesuperstore.com/sto...an-diego-1.htm

Check this out for instance.
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/ssd/bik/3561134537.html

One thing you don't get with a used bike, however is a lot of choice to figure out the right size. To do this, you should go to a bike store and sit on several sized bikes of the model you're looking at. Then, you can shop the used market for that exact size. That's the downside of used - it takes time.

Size is important. While I'm an inch taller than my wife, she actually has a bike 2" larger size than mine. Her torso is much longer than mine. I rode her bike at the store and immediately it didn't feel as comfortable as the smaller one I bought.

as a comparison. I purchased my Giant Anthem full suspension for exactly 1g plus tax. Its been a great bike. I rode a Kona previously, which was also a great bike for me.

I wouldn't over-analyze what you want if this is your first go at a serious mountain bike.

Except that go with full suspension if you can find a way to afford it. Night & day difference

I was able to snag an older Cannondale Scalpel for $400 this summer, found it on craigslist and LOVE it. I had to scour the ads for a while as a lot of people think their garbage bikes are still worth hundreds. If you go the used route I would recommend http://www.bikepedia.com to sort through some of the components. If you go new find a good shop with a great reputation. When i worked at a shop we allowed test rides but as we were not close to any trails people really liked that they could talk to people that had actually ridden the bikes under real world situations.

I have used es4 mountain bike for riding and i have weared mountain bike clothes for safty. Because when i have started riding on the mountain so i weared mountain clothes with full protections. But my mountain bike is very good looking and bery comfortable and pretty good work.

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