Help with purchasing a Hardtail

Napalm73 said:

Hi All,

I have a road bike for training, a dually for cross country (and some downhill) and an old ridged mountain bike to ride to the paper shop and pub.

What am I missing - a hartail!!

I am after some advice on what is a good light hardtail. Disc breaks are not a major concern for me; I am more concerned with weight.

I will be using it for touring that will include a bit of cross country (and simple downhill).

The max I am looking to spend is about $750. I know a few shops in Sydney are running out some of their '05 stock.

Any advice on what type of bike and best place to buy it would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Napalm

wow, you've got the same setup of bikes as I

$750 won't get you much unfortunately

my mates Giant XTC2 is a sweet ride... it even has remote lockout forks (recon)... would be nice to commute with

the felts in the $700 price range have nice light frames tho...

Felts.... mmm: http://www.deanwoods.com.au/store/category128_1.htm there are some 2005 specials still to be found. 😄

I got a fantastically spec'd learsport XTR for $1499, they have lower priced models also. If you squeeze them a bit you might get the one with LX gear for close to your budget.

A friend of mine is currently looking for a hardtail in around the same price range. We went to City Bike Depot in Kent St Sydney and the guy there showed us a few GTs. He was saying that the GTs are very well specced against comparable bikes in their price range. In fact, I believe the GT Avalanche 1.0 non disc version sells at around the $750.00 range. The salesmans claims were that for the likes of Trek and Giant you are paying a lot for the name (although not taking anything away from the quality) but when comparing like models in the price range these companies are putting lower quality components to achieve the lower price.
The Avalanche 1.0 as an example comes with an aluminium double-butted top and down tube, Rock Shox J3 forks 100mm travel w/lockout, Deore LX rear derailleurs and shifters, Truvativ 5D cranks and Avid brake levers and brakes. A Trek or Giant in that price range would probably have Alivio and Acera components. I also favour the Felts the others have mentioned; but then again, that's because I own a Felt.🙂