Schwinn 2000 Pro Stock Comp

Advantages: Lightweight, Good componentry, Reliable
Disadvantages: A little front-heavy

...The Trek 6000 is part of Trek's year 2000 range, and as such is still selling in the shops now, often at a knockdown price. I managed to find mine in a sale close to the end of 2000 at £500, dropped from £625. For your money, you get an Aluminium hardtail frame, In-Sync forks, Dia Compe brakes, a chainset which is half LX half LX Deore and a smattering of Bontrager components for various other things. The frame, being an aluminium hardtail (no suspension) is nice and light and is forgiving enough to take some of the sting out of the trail. The only real criticisms here are fairly minor, there's no rear disc brake mount and on the smaller frames, it can be difficult to use a water bottle as the bottle mount is a little too far up the downtube. The In-Sync forks are OK. There's a few inches of useable travel, they don't bounce around... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Go fast up hill and even faster down
Disadvantages: Can feel abit clunky

...Specialized Epic Comp 2007. This bike is owned by my husband, and I recently trialled it as I was upgrading from a Specialized FSR Comp 2006. From reading reviews about this bike it is marketed as a XC race bike, and could be a bit twitchy on the downhill’s. Also knowing the people that I know that ride them they are all very fast and technically competent riders, so when looking into buying this bike I assumed that it would be too difficult for me to ride and that a stumpjumper would be suited to me. So on trialling both the stumpjumper and the epic and found that the epic suited me a lot better, I found that it climbed really well due to a more hardtail set up of the bike but I also found that it was really good on the downhill as well. So if you thinking about getting a new bike I definitely recommend considering an epic even... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Top quality kit
Disadvantages: Nothing at all

...quality hard tail bike. I personally don't listen to the folks that go on and on about whether a bike is fit to race or how good it is when your leaping over a jump. Its all rubbish. For the standard rider your never going to notice much of this. Its more important to know that you personally like the feel of riding it and that you have or develop the ability to ride a mountain bike well. If you can't ride a 100 pound bike you wont fair any better of a 1000 pound bike. So to stop rambling, I chose it because I knew the reputation, quality and because I had a Rockhopper Comp way back in the early 90's and it was great then. There are another 3 in the range. Rockhopper (549), Rockhopper Disc (649) and the Pro (949). WHAT SIZE - TRY BEFORE YOU BUY I visited a couple of bike shops looking for this bike. As I am 6'3" I was looking at the 21... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful