I need ur words of wisdom! Fs/Ht dilemma!

[Tinkers234]

Hi everyone!

I'm looking at getting a mountain bike on the cycle to work scheme for a grand I quite like the boardmans and for 999 I could get a full sus team bike or a hard tail Pro?
What would you go for? I have recently started MTB with a local club nothing extreme just a mixture of on an off road rides hills an mud! I'm hoping to do a skills course on my new bike as I would like to go to some trails once I have more confidence! Which bike do u think would suit me best?
Thanks! :-)

 

[Pauluk]

I'm not in to modern MTBs anymore but my son uses a FS bike for off road trails but wishes he had a hard tail. I would imagine that it would be a good thing if you could get FS with lock outs for the suspension as this would give you the best of both worlds.

I had a FS MTB and was impressed with its ground holding abilities over rough terrain and down hill, but on climbs over soft ground it was a liability.

I noticed that a lot of the MTBs used in the Olympics were hard tails with the front forks set to high pressure for steep down hill safe descents.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I found that I could manage the red route at Wolftrax near Aviemore on a hard-tail.
I am pretty certain that the 2 lads on the black route were also on hard tails as well.

Full Suspension looses a lot of pedal power and therefore forward momentum, so unless you are going to be dedicated to these trails, I personally would go for the hard tail, but if you want to be really sure, repost this in the moutain bike section.