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Hi all in the summer i purchased a saracen mantra 650B the base model with the suntour xcm forks .everytime i go for a ride the stanctions get covered in oil or grease i seen on ebay or a website called fibica i can get the suntour raidons or epicons for around £130 Would it be wise to upgrade to these or save for a better bike and make do with it for the time beeing?. I usually ride at afan forest park or bike park wales as i live in beetween the two .
It doesn't seem to be a bad budget fork. Certainly an improvement over the XCM forks.
When you say 'save for a better bike', what do you mean? The Mantra is at the cheaper end of the market but is, in my opinion, a mountain bike, as opposed to a bike you'll regret buying the second you try to go off road. I guess my question is, how much are you planning to spend in the future and how long will it take you to save? Spending the £130 will obviously eat into the future budget.
Thing like upgrading to 10 speed (better shifting from SLX groupset) a lighter wheelset / tires and better forks will all make a big difference.
I don't know how long you've been mountain biking and how hard the bug's bitten. Depending on this, maybe stick with what you have and get saving...
The mantra isn't a bad bike. Maybe save for some Rockshox or Fox forks or keep an eye on the classifieds?
The bikes a good one, but the forks are cheap.
I would ride the forks until they are lacking lots or seize up - and in the meantime save up for a pair of rockshox, Marzocchi or fox from classifieds. £150-250 would get you some great forks that you can service and buy parts for.
Thanks for all the replies the bug has hit quite hard and me not having a bike for around ten years when i was a kid it would probably take my to the spring to save for something such as an orange crush or bird zero which i quite fancy but dont know wether id be better of upgrading my current bike or waiting and getting something like that? Like could my bike be almost as good as one of those for less money .
Hi Joelvaughan56, I can't really comment on whether the Zero would offer you a better bike than an upgraded Mantra (well I could but I'd obviously be biased 😉 ) but I can tell you the individual RRPs of all the components on the Zero.3 is over £2000 - thats a lot of upgrading, even if you save money buying those parts online!
I have a 2012 Saracen Mantra (26"). Other than the wheel size, I think only the brakes are different (Quad went out of business).
I've been riding it fairly regularly and things have started to wear out. The suspension is ok~ish, but I've never managed to get more than 90mm out of it (120mm) and now only get about 60mm. It is also pretty rough on the arms now. (I took my wife;s bike out recently and was surprised that it was my legs getting tired, not my arms!). So I'd bee looking at a new fork - £150
Half of the drive train has been replaced (pesky rocks) but the cranks are now needing replaced too. As the chain rings are bolted on, I'd need to buy a new crankset. I'd take the opportunity to move up to Deore 10s (currently 8s with some 9s parts), so £250~ish (I don't need new brakes as I changed to Deores when I couldn't get parts for the Quad nanos).
The rims are pretty narrow, my 2.25" tires look like balloons strapped to the rim and there is a good amount of slack before the wheels engage. So I'd like to upgrade them too. Some sort of stans on hope seems like a good option. ~£350~ish.
The frame has some good scratches from chain suck and slap. The cables could do with being replaced, so could the grips. Generally, things are getting a bit worn out.
So, for all the upgrades I want/need to do would cost ~£750 on a <£400 bike. Or, I could buy a new bike.
The bird Zero.3 is right at the top of my list. It is pretty much how I would spec a bike (I would have added a dropper (and blown the budget) and gone for hope/stans wheels), and I love the look of them too.
Other options:
* 456 something (was top contender until the zero went <£1K)
* Aeris (50% over budget though, I could still be tempted),
* Cube Fritzz (if I could save up for that long without buying the Zero first - Nearly twice the price/wait).
Ben, are you doing any demo days in N. Ireland? I'm 90% sure I'm going for a Zero, but would love to try an Aeris. The budget looks like I should be able to buy Feburary/March~ish assuming nothing goes wrong 🙂
Also, from a quick look, the (17") [url= http://shop.birdmtb.com/zero/zero-3.html ]Zero geometry[/url] shares a few similarities with the [url= http://www.saracen.co.uk/bikes/trail/mantra ]Mantra geometry[/url] and some differences too. How do you think these bikes would compare?
Thanks for all the replies its certainly looking like im better off making do for a bit and getting a new bike in a couple of months looking at the spec on the birds they do seem very good value for money so think il hold on and get some overtime in and go for one of them