covie

Ive tried a couple and found Giro to be the best, they have also dropped massivly in price, that said though i get a bout a year out of a set of gloves the leather on the palms have little holes that stretches and eventually turns into a maoerse hole.

theres a reason people wear full length gloves regardless.

Havent done it but just go for it can only be an adventure.

My opinion if you get upset at someone doing something silly in your not in the top 10 of the 2500 "racers" you are a moron and should be removed from the genepool.

Havent ridden the overdrive so cannot say how it improves life but im just saying im open to innovation, and Im definitly open to sacrafice weight for stiffness ive seen my old times being obliterated by my new "heavy" but super stiff machine I personally love the look of the giants as well. Its just the colour schemes I think they can be more inovative, The anthem X 2010 in brushed crhome was just awesome looking. The white and black blue and red giants dont work for me.

I dont, if i do events like the Argus MTB, burger MTB etc that are insanely huge with odd seeding systems you KNOW, you will be stuck in traffic, people will fall in front of you on flat dirt roads etc. Thats part of the game. However for the most part, Seeding sorts out the more advanced from the less advanced peeps, and if you dont want to be held up and your stuck in a poor seeding group. you have the option of going balls to the wall and dropping the group on the first major climbs, and that without fail gets you ahead of the "learner" group. If you are not fit and strong enough to be in the head of the group or improve your seeding then you need to take these things as part of racing, If the OP was in the A group, where they would have hounded him shouting for track becuase his "technical capability" is not that of the Pro's he would be bitching about, Damn rude MTB'ers. And complaining that the A group told him to @$#@ off out of the way. If congestion is going to be an issue in your life you have a couple of options. 1. Get fit enough and race enough to get a decent seeding with people of your own caliber. 2. Only go to lesser populated long races as the field spreads out quickly. 3. Stop racing if 1 and 2 doesnt work for you.

could have been worse could have lost commentry and be forced to listen to sasha "ferrari bunghole" martinigo, talking about ferrari the entire time while the saubers, maclarens, red bulls and lotus's were doing the race of their lives.

I dont know Crow, my 29'er has a 20mm maxle in front, 142/12mm rear, a direct mount front derailure, and a ridiculously large bend in the seatstay tube, and its without a doubt the best bike I have ever ridden, those lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to take her for a test ride, were all uninamious that they wanted to kill me and take my bike and these are friends with damn decent kit. I know that now people are moving towards, 20mm maxle and 142/12 but it was really slow to take off, and most XC machines still only cater for 15mm maxle. That makes it tough to sell parts on the second hand market, but who cares, the bike rides like a wet dream.

People tend to think that once you get something that looks too good to be true it mostly is. Giant has done wonders in bringing top of the line gear to the consumer at mid range pricing. Scott is jumping on the bandwagon too, they just need to drop the dtswiss 210 shock from their bikes and then it too would be a great bike at a very decent pricepoint. Besides some niche manufacturers that i understand why they are expensive, like RM, Ellsworth, Pyga, Santa Cruz, most of the other brands are still taking consumers for all they have, and most of those products are generally inferior to the Anthem. Some equal the anthem and most at double the price. And we in SA love market trends, if some guy wins a XCO race on a 27.5 we all start running around looking for 27.5 bikes, when Bulls won all the epics everyone ran around looking for a bulls bike since it has to be the best, and now currently spez has the best riders winning a lot of races so everyone is taking out second mortages on their houses to go out and get a spez. People still think that the more you pay the better your bike. And where there sometimes is merit to that mentallity, In a lot of the cases its just a gravy train scheme. Moral of the story is if you do enough quality research you eventually start seeing whats what.. if you stick to the reviews from professional reviewers that have had enough time to properly test a peace of kit.

looking at 7-9 cars fighting over 2nd / 3rd position with proper overtaking just put a massive smile on my face, for once i wasnt bothered that Hami wasnt winning, i was glued to the fights behind Rosberg, totally awesome.

Comming of an anthem i have to say they are great bikes. But in my opinion more of trail type bike than a purebred racing DS. That said she served me well over many trails and many races. The old girl shall be missed. Definitly one of the best 26" bikes out there, Havent riddent the 29'ers yet, but being an anthem they should be equally as good.

well lets start of with one and see how we progress.

Its official after serious mathematical computations and considering all the variables i beleive the OP must be the Idiot of the Week! can we make a virtual HUB trophy and circulate it on a weekly basis, to these greater than great cyclists? I beleive they need to be rewarded for entertainment they provide.

Dude its a complete science

No such thing mate may you have many happy miles

Once again every one made that suggestion the OP cannot get a second bike in his size in that price class not many XL bikes in the market, hence the OP is opting for a new bike, Upgrading is always more expensive your quite right, but the OP is not looking for a XTR/XO machine to start off with, So buying the hardrock is perfectly fine. And since its also a new bike theres no risk of defunct components. buying a 6k bike second hand then having to buy a 5k fork a month later becuase the seller lied about the service history is also not always the best idea. Basically the OP needs to decide if he wants to wait for a second hand bike to come around or buy a bike thats worth the money and effort to upgrade in time.

Arendoog i suggest you go back to the beginning of the thread and read up before you make posts like this that totally opinionated and based on lack of information. 1 Everyone here has suggested the option to buy a good second hand bike, The OP is struggling to get one in XL and hence is opting for a cheap new bike with a frame that’s worth investing to build up. 2. Secondly having completed a couple of 80km races does not make you an authority on bibs and cycling pants. Let’s make this clear you need to do three things, eat breath and ****, the rest is optional and a luxury, every single person i know that cycles and they are legion, have gone through the baggy, cycling short, and eventually graduated to Bib. Do you need a bib no you don’t, I’ve done races in normal shorts thanks to my bibs tearing on a ride the day before the race, you don’t need any of it. Is there merit to owning a bib yes, the advantages far outweigh baggies and normal cycling pants, and since all three is expensive it makes sense to invest in a decent bib from the word go. that way you don’t waste thousands on finding out a bib is superior to baggies and cycling shorts. My suggestion in future is to base you posts on fact, and to read the entire thread before telling the OP he has received bad advice, as in this case your advice is non sensical and you happen to be the weakest link. Good bye.

I would stick with the spez, great reviews, and loads of upgrade potential, not sure about the fuji brand in general, the thing with 29'ers are getting the geometry right, and apparently the geometry on the rockhopper is awesome, the rest as said before you will upgrade, doesnt make a diff if its alivio or deore, they both entry level with little or no difference. you will eventually be looking at putting on xt or SRAM x9. or even higher. I use to only ride XT/X0 i had to put a x7 derailure on my new bike, and thought i would ride it a week before i would want to upgrade it, and amazingly i havent felt the need to upgrade, some of the lower end components these days are almost as good as the very top end. Just a bit uglier and a little heavier.

Let me know when your hooked up ill take you for a guided tour of some of the best singletrack CPT has to offer

Yes you can stick to the standard stuff and it will work, but soon as youre skills progress you will want a better fork for better ride comfort, If i remember the rockhopper only has 80mm of travel, (speaking under correction here) but regardless youll want a plusher ride in time. 2 getting a new wheelset is not just about getting something that rolls better you also shave of a lot of weight by putting on new wheels so its double score. That said you could ride that bike as is just fine,,,,,, but as you will soon find out upgrading your kit becomes an obsession, I bought a really expensive bike last month, this month its a new shock, next month new wheelset, month after that probably new crank or brakeset, you eventually build the machine the way you want it costly .... but fun

Its more like a decent frame with a whole bunch of crap attached to it, but thats fine, as you start off and break stuff, you dont want high grade components and you can invest and upgrade over time. Like caerus said, upgrade 1 the fork upgrade 2 the wheelset. The rest you ride till it breaks. and then replace with higher level components.

ITs not the best speced bike, but every single review has it 4 stars plus, I also read a review where a very famous rider tested it for 3 months, his only complaint was that when you get to sections in the DCM where you have to carry the bike, it hurts your shoulder, besides that he said it was rock solid, and a total unexpected joy to ride.

speak to deon at cyclefunatic hell help you out.

Are you taking the p!ss out of people again?

you go commando.