Hi
I'm wondering if anyone can help recommend a new hardtail mountain bike up to around £500 - £600 I've had a look at a few shops and bikes but there is a lot of choice! I'd also prefer to be able to pick it up so ideally somewhere in the North West. Out of the bikes in stock I like.
Boardman MHT 8.6
Voodoo Bragg
Giant Talon 3
Calibre Rake 29
Polygon Xtrada 5
Scott Aspect 950
Specialized Rockhopper Sport
Is there any I'm missing or if these are the best of the price range which is the best bike?
Thanks in advance
The Boardman or Polygon would be my choice from that list - air fork, decent brakes and Deore drive chain on both.
In the same boat, thanks for the list 👍😁
I liked the Boardman. Only downsides is it's QR wheels and only a 2.2/2.3 in the back I reckon.
Off to Google others.
Carrera Fury and base Voodoo Binzango?
Do you feel knowledgeable enough to buy secondhand?
It's a buyers' market now and you could get a lot more bike for your money, but you do need to know what you're looking at.
What kind of riding are you looking to do?
At that price point, I'd 100% recommend second hand, even if you have to get someone who knows what they are on about to check it out for you
At that price point, I'd 100% recommend second hand, even if you have to get someone who knows what they are on about to check it out for you
As someone searching that price point for an MTB it's a bit of a minefield.
There seems to be a fair few duplicate / rip off adverts about so you can spend a lot of time trawling and not know which are genuine.
It's not just know how of fixing and inspecting it's the time cost of kissing a a few frogs.
I say this as someone who just bought a nice carbon secondhand road bike for £300 and spent about £400 refreshing the drivetrain etc. Much better outcome than most of the £6-700 road bikes, which still needed most of the same work. Lovely bike.
I'm still looking but running out of time before our planned Lakes trip.
Also eBay (or the app on my phone) seems to be having some kind of weird glitch at the minute of showing pictures of bikes that are not in the actual listing.
There's a quite distinctive Trek on there at the moment where the main listing picture is on multiple other unconnected listings in the app. When you click through to the ones described as Specialized or GT that is what you get pictures of not the Trek.
Maybe that's why I keep thinking it might be a copycat. Either way it's a pain.
I picked up a bargain cube reaction carbon xc bike second hand for that.
BUT I'd be reluctant to reccomend to someone who isn't handy doing their own maintenance. Mine had incorrect dropout fitted, fork damper needed rebuild to fix stuck adjusters, discs bent, brake pads contaminated and needing replacement. Even with barely ridden bikes sometimes people make hamfisted attempts at maintenance and break non-obvious things.
Carrera Fury and base Voodoo Binzango?
Just a bit too much. The ones in stock for collection or delivery were they 2025 models and were 680 or 750.
Do you feel knowledgeable enough to buy secondhand?
It's a buyers' market now and you could get a lot more bike for your money, but you do need to know what you're looking at.
What kind of riding are you looking to do?
Not really, that's why I started looking at newer bikes.
Mainly be used on gravel off-road/blue trails.
In the same boat, thanks for the list 👍😁
I liked the Boardman. Only downsides is it's QR wheels and only a 2.2 removed link in the back I reckon.
Off to Google others.
Did you find any others? I'd probably add the Trek Marlin 5 to that list I was looking at too.
2nd hand for sure. I got my nearly new Vitus Sentier 29 for £400, it's well specced with Bomber Z2 fork, Deore brakes and 11spd drivetrain, WTB tubeless ready wheels, Schwalbe tyres etc. Didn't need anything changing, just add pedals and grips of your choice.
Would definitely recommend looking for similar, even though the Vitus geometry isn't the most modern it's still good to ride and the components are good enough that the frame can be swapped out later on, as I plan to do.
Hi
Ended up getting Calibre Rake 29 from my local Go Outdoors. They had my size in stock and on sale for £399. Been out on it a couple of times and all seems good so far. Managed to get most of the kit I need under £500 budget so can't complain.
Thanks for all your help
