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£4K, would it be worth it?
Anything else to recommend?
If you happen to be an XL then I'm about to sell a Santa Cruz Highball (the latest one) which has seen very little use for a lot less. It feels great to ride, rapid up the hills, surprisingly capable down and the rear stays have a noticeable effect in reducing trail buzz but it has become plainly obvious that I am not an xc racer so i am using a chameleon for my more xc orientated rides and the full sus for everything else.
Sorry mate, short arse medium!
It's quite a specific question and genre. Are you going xc racing?
My kind of riding is xc! I suppose I’m just looking for justification to spend 4K. I’ve ridden 29ers now for over 12 years, full sussers, rigid, single speeds etc and now I’m getting old 🙈 fancy a new modern replacement.
Are there any other options?
Thanks
The list is almost endless. From a Solaris to a Sherpa, or a Scott Scale and an Orbea.
Basically at £4000 you can have just about any hardtail with any spec you want.
Seems like a lot for a hardtail, but then it turns out you can get a Kona hardtail for £4k these days...
Personally I would:
- go for a Cannondale and Lefty that I can drool over
- Ask Cy nicely to see if they have a leftover Cotic SodaMax somewhere in the warehouse I could buy, and build that up (or buy a different Ti hardtail)
- Spend £1k on a watch and the remaining £3k on a hardtail 🙂
Lol!
I have a nice watch 😂
If all out performance is your thing then it could be, but do you want all out performance over comfort?
Fair point with the comfort thing but my days of bouncing over rough terrain have finished. I’m definitely a cross country guy now and find that only front suspension is enough for me!
There’s also a little of, I want a new bike thing going on!
You have now thrown a spanner into my thinking 🙈
The last full Sussex 29er I had, I found it heavy at the end of a long ride compared to the lighter hardtails but maybe things have moved on!
Do I look at full suspension bikes as well 🙈
The last full Sussex 29er I had, I found it heavy at the end of a long ride compared to the lighter hardtails but maybe things have moved on!
Do I look at full suspension bikes as well
I probably would at least give a couple a go, some great lightweight stuff about and will make it comfortable 🙂 If you don't know you won't miss it is one way of looking at it but if you don't try you can't make a fair choice!!
A sale short travel 29er could be awesome.
I came so close to buying the Santa Cruz highball recently. I had it for two, week-long demos, and found it very comfortable on 3 hour rides. Obviously it's very light and stiff, but it's no bone rattler. Ultimately I went for another full suss as I'm not going to race more than a handful of times, so general xc/trail fun won out.
So what bike did you choose over the Santa Cruz?
Plenty of light weight full sus XC bikes for 4k. I'd argue that they're better over distance due to the comfort.
I've finally gelled with my Spark RC900 after the weekend and did a 35 mile loop with over 5000ft of climbing and it was brilliant!
Any road sections are easy as the twin loc takes care of that. Probably the fastest and best pedalling bike I've ever ridden.
Missus also rides a Trek Top Fuel and she loves it! They love fast, flowy singletrack!
I'm even using it for the Dirty Reiver this weekend (130K) 🙂
So what bike did you choose over the Santa Cruz?
Yeti SB100. Was going to get the Blur but they were on backorder until at least end of April