AdventureAndy

Scroll down a little further. They are offering a trip to go to Die Hel by bike…..

Just keep in mind. No matter what brand, as a general rule, a three bike rack is only suitable for 2 bikes. If you need to transport three bikes regularly, you need a 4 bike rack. If you generally only transport 2 bikes, the 3 bike rack will be fine

This whole thread is about the aesthetics around water bottles. The OP wants bottles with no branding on them.

The only bottles I have ever actually spent money on is the 750ml camelback insulated bottles, because they actually work well at keeping drinks cold for a long time. Use them for rides that I plan to last more than 3.5 hours, and the camelback is used for hydration during the ride. Nice to have some ice cold water at the halfway mark on a blistering hot summer day, amd the branding is pretty subtle. Granted they aren’t black….. for everything else, free bottles work just fine, and there is virtually a limitless supply. I don’t actually think I have bought a t-shirt or a water bottle in the past 3 years….but I fear I may be on the wrong thread here…

Good thing I have no chance of riding one between now and Tuesday then…

Im going to have to stretch a lot….unfortunately not a realistic option for me. Great bike I agree.

That Norco looks like a machine, especially at the price point, Will phone around a little on Monday for both that and the GT (hoping the ally spec is similar to the carbon, if I can get one…. Before pulling the trigger on the stumpy thanks for the inputs so far

This new bike is replacing a Trance 29er, that was an awesome trail bike, and I think the meastro pivot from giant is a work of art. If I could get another Trance the Stumpjumper wouldn’t even be on my radar. But I have ridden the stance and the trance back to back, and I would not put my money into a stance. If they brought it out with the meastro pivot, but went cheaper on the shock, like Spaz has done on the entry level Stumpjumper, sure, but having ridden one, I wasn’t impressed with the stance. It was a 2019 model, but not sure much has changed there since… Also. The stance is 120 at the back, disqualifying it from my list from the get go, and it has a press fit BB…. That doesn’t belong anywhere near anything meant for going any where near dirt. In fact I don’t even know why the use those on road bikes. Worst idea in cycling…

Spark 970 is, in my mind not even almost on par. The geometry sucks compared to the stumpy. It’s a great XC/marathon setup, but not a proper trail bike. The Judy fork it comes with is a twig compared to the 35 on the stumpy. I do wish the stump came with a gold 35, but the silver is okay… spark is also only a 120mm front and rear…. So automatically disqualified from my search. I do own a spark 950, which I will keep for my more XC style riding…. (Self edit… I see the new one is 130up front…. Which in my opinion is way too much travel for a 30mm entry level fork….) the stance is not a bike I would consider. The linkage on that isn’t great. It’s basically a trance without the maestro linkage, and a bike I think giant should rather not have made. Trance is an amazing trail bike, but I would be looking at the trance 3 in this price bracket, and there just aren’t any available.

Where from? I haven’t been able to find GT in stock anywhere in my search. I have always had a soft spot for them, since my first Zaskar I’m high school… must say, carbon to me, on this type of bike is not really a selling point. Carbon makes sense on ultralight XC bikes, but for trail bikes the difference in frame weight is negligible, and the risks with carbon so so much higher. But frame aside, the 10k price difference is worth it for the rear shock and decent brakes alone.

I’m going to weigh in here. This is only my second ever post on bikehub. The first being a thread I started this morning asking for input on a new bike purchase (cycling related) I have been aware of the hub for years. Have even bought a few things advertised in the classifieds before, and have gotten some good info from time to time on the threads, when researching an issue. but I finally decided to join when I saw the announcement of NCR threads being removed. Well done to the admin team for this. The internet is huge, and full of echo chambers and notice boards to go and discuss any topic of your choice. You can even choose platforms based on your own confirmation bias, to be sure 99% of everyone there agrees with you. I stayed away from joining this forum previously, because there seemed to be a massive amount of other stuff not cycling related being discussed ad nauseam here. More so, it seemed to be the same small handful of people keeping these threads going forever and ever, creating a lot of noise and clutter, that one has to sift through to get to any actual good cycling content. those same members seem to also be the ones that bring constant negativity into the actual cycling threads, either with divisive opinions, or with their very high and mighty attitudes. I can only imagine this decision will by default also result in a natural cleaning up of the cycling related threads. I hope I’m right. If not, I’m fortunately not overly invested in this. I decided to give the hub a try now that they are focusing on cycling again, and if it doesn’t work out, I will Still enjoy riding my bike just as much as before…

Hi guys. Newbie here. (New to the forum, not to cycling) I am about to pull the trigger on a new bike, and with stock availability being a bit of an issue, and having minimum time to actually shop around, and go look at the offerings that are available, I think I have settled on the 2021 Stumpjumper Alloy. It’s been reserved for me at on of the shops, and I will be picking it up on Tuesday afternoon. but I just want to check if there is something I have maybe missed….. or something else I should be looking at. From my basic search, the stumpie seems a good value proposition all around. The brakes are rubbish, but I have a set of SLX twin pots in the garage, and they will go straight on. Other than that, it seems a good set up at the price. (R42k). But if I was willing to stretch the budget to R50k, what other options have I missed out on? criteria: - Must be new (personal preference - I know I can get some bargains used - potentially, but I don’t like second hand bikes, and I want warranty) - must be an actual trail bike, not a XC bike with hiking boots on…… min 130mm travel. beyond that, I am willing to look at anything, but I can’t see anything else fitting the budget? Am I missing something? All the other bikes in that price range are beefed up XC/marathon bikes. I would have preferred a better group set (the Spaz has SX), but if I get half a year from it, then I can upgrade. Probably to XT or GX