Advices for beginners

Seems a discussion about a new bike comes up regularly here, and there's nothing better to discuss, no? Hey - keep it clean fellas!

Can you give some clue as to what sort of riding you are doing (or looking to do)? For $1300 you should be able to pick up a mid-range hardtail, or perhaps entry dualie.

Anyhow, do a search for "new bike" in these pages for a start, plenty of opinion around and some of it recent.

Ah - A Giant Talon is probably a very nice choice - Giant are renowned for giving you a lot of bang for the buck component wise. I didn't look over the list on this one too extensively but it's probably a safe bet.

I also like Trek hardtails - the Trek 6000 is $1199 retail (you will get a discount at Clarence Street if you ask - as you will at most Giant dealers).

Don't forget if your budget is $1300 you need to leave probably at least $200 of that aside for a helmet, gloves, pump, spare tube, etc.

Just be sure to get something that feels good when you're sitting on it and shop around.

saw a Scott Reflex 10 hardtail...that I liked and the price is not bad either...
that was a reduced sale price in shop!

the weight was nice on these ...12 odd kilos...very nice

Actually, Scott make a dualie that weights in at 9.9Kg!

my personal decision some years ago was to get a hardtail due to the $ i had, so i went for the toughest kind of hard tail i could find, so it would be able to be pretty much thrashed and not brake every 5 sec like my old bike ! so i went with a dirt-jump style bike..a 2002 avanti manic -reinforced rear triangle design, replaceable dropouts, semi decent fork and basically bomb proof. It has served me well till now, essentially i traded a bit of weight for toughness- ie, dirt jump bikes are a bit heavier, and as such the geometry is also not as good for climbing, and although xc bikes are lighter, i think when ur starting out, ull do alot of things that arnt that good for the bike! and xc bikes seem to crumble up alot!- anyway my 2c is get a good tough one, and screw the weight unless ur planning on riding on roads and marshmallows

I bought my son one of these and it has been great! Once again it is a dirt jump bike and tough as nails. The trails around here are that rocky I couldn't see an XC type hard tail lasting too long.

PS don't try any of your friends duelies like I did. Went straight out and got a Kona Coiler after 4 months on a hard tail.

For me the Coiler has been the ideal bike for the trails around here. Red Hill and parts of Oxford Falls are brutal on bikes and it has held up well. I have upgraded the forks to 170mm 66s and Rims to Mag 30s along with DH stem and tyres. With this set up I was even able to try DH racing.

You could pick up a 2nd hand one pretty cheap I reckon.