I've been thinking about a new mountain bike for road (paved, gravel, and plain [censored]) touring and offroad use. The offroad use - which is what I am buying the bike for, and what it will spend the majority of it's time doing - will consist of XC. The dirt crits under the west gate and the melbourne 12 hour in particular 🙂.
After a fair bit of umming and aahing I decided on the Giant XTC2 (http://www.giant-bicycles.com/au/030.000.000/030.000.000.asp?model=9856), and I discoved my LBS has it for $1400 at the moment. Before I bite the bullet though, I figured I should ask if anyone has any cautions about the XTC2 or recommendations of anything else I should check out (for example the XTC2 LE for $100 more, although from what I've read so far the XTC2 looks just as good).
Oh and finally, does a medium frame sound about right? I'm 173cm and weigh 65kg. Thanks 🙂.
for the $$ it is hard to beat... it is well specced and as you say versatile
i think the only issue is the softness of the front shocks.. see if you can get a stiffer spring... manitou seem to underspring their forks out of the factory
too soft mean there is excessive bob and will throw you off the bike at the wrong time
