Son you've got £800ish to spend on a full suss ideas please!

Soooo...Its getting there. Got the Rift Zone a couple of weeks back hoping to get straight out on it and ride....However! I bought it from ebay without viewing it as it was in Ireland and me down on the south coast!. But I asked the guy a bunch of questions about the bike and spoke to him at length on the phone and seemed a genuine guy. So I parted with £730 and awaited its arrival. It arrived very well packed but in transit both wheels had been badly buckled! Doh! Not his fault but he did refund me £30 to get them re-trued...So I check it into my trusted LBS to get the wheels trued and it seemed the disc brakes were rubbing so I asked them to look at them too.

The upshot was that the front wheel got trued but the bearing in the hub were shot so got them replaced and fortunately they had not scored the cups! Rear wheel a different story...freehub shot, hub bearings shot and badly scored the hub. Going to be a new hub and relace onto an already buckled rim...it worked out better just to go for a new complete rear wheel. LBS had a Mavic XM319 built up on a deore M525 hub for £60 so I just went for that! The disc thing, the allinement was out and the pads needed replacing...pads replaced still not returning well so now need to get both calipers serviced!...So I'm looking on a total bill of another £150...I've invested in a couple of other bits too some Maxis High Rollers, NC17 trekking pedals and cut down the bars and stuck my ends on. Waiting on delivery of a new seatpost and Charge Spoon saddle. Oh and the front mech works but wobbles so that will be the next investment!

I guess I would say that the guy selling just didn't know much about bikes so didn't recognise the problems! I don't think I would buy another bike without a viewing tho!

That said I love it! Rides sweet and the rear feels so much more refined than my old Marin. Some how gives amazing rear traction where I had struggled before on well know trails I ride, I found much more power to the ground...Lighter and more agile...I would recommend the bike to anyone...In fact I would go as far to say as everyone should try one!

Cheers for all the help guys

Wook

Marin

Looks nice, but for what you've just shelled out for the bike and now the cost of repairs? You could've got a brand new Boardman Full Suss like this:

http://www.boardmanbikes.com/mtb/fs_team.html

which would've been lighter and not caused you any hassle.....

Those Boardman's are bloody excellent value and ride well too.

Hope you get your Marin woes all sorted out and get out and enjoy being on a full suss.

Hi GMC

I see your point but not keen on Boardman bikes (....gives me the Halfords fear!). I guess I'm just one of those guys that would rather have an older bike with better build quality than a new one. To put it another way...I'd rather have a 3 year old BMW than a brand new Kia!

Each to their own tho!

Wook

That looks very nice

I'd take a secondhand bike over anything new off the shelf as well

...also I have bought new bikes before and ended up having to upgrade a bunch of stock parts (pedals for a start) as whilst it may have a nice groupset you can be sure they are saving money elsewhere... A 2nd hand bike has hopefully gone through the teething problems stage...Just not everyone maintains there bikes as they should unfortunately for me...

I would not buy a three year old BMW or a brand new Kia as both are too expensive for me.

Boardman bikes are not too bad some of them are not bad at all. One could even say they are decent.