What bike for the Alps next year ?

[J4CKO]

Hi, refugee fromt he commuting forum here, a few guys at work have expressed an interest in going to the Alps next year for some MTB'ing, a mate with some four grand Orange Downhill makes it sound terrifying and only for him and his similarly equiped mates, basically I can spend a grand on the Cycle to work scheme, my mate makes Morzine sound like you need the four grand bike but I see it as ski-ing, they have loads of trails for various abilities and I am not going to do black runs, I just fancy easy to moderate runs on something reasobly capable, dont want a full DH bike as for me it would be useless over here as I dont want something I cant ride uphill that weighs half a tonne, I want it to be general purpose.

Any suggestions ?

 

[mocker]

rent one out there?
a £1000 full susser would be ok for country parks and xc over here, but would soon start to show its budget in morzine...IMHO...why not spank to death someone elses allmountain/DH bike out there, thoroughly enjoy yourself and buy an entry level xc susser when you get home?...

 

[maurice]

Hire out there is pretty expensive, would cost 100's.

J4CKO, my initial thought would be to try to pick up a discounted Kona Coiler, a 6-inch freeride type bike, still rideable uphill and able to take on most DH stuff. However I had a quick look and there doesn't seem to be as many discounted as usual.

I rode my Kona Dawg (5 inch full suss) out in Whistler for a day, and that was very capable on all the intermediate downhills there, but didn't try it on the black graded trails.

 

[Berger and Chips]

Maurice, there is nothing much discounted anywhere these days.
Used to be able to pick up last years models 1/3 off and older ones at half the price.
This is just not the case any more.
People know the new bikes have lower spec so the 06/07/08 stock has disappeared from the discount on line warehouses.
I have spent many hours checking Chain Reaction, Bonthrone, Evans, Pauls Cycles, Pedal On,Wiggle, etc and the deals have mostly just dried up. Its sadly got to the point where Halfords and Decathlon really can match the online stores for the best deals.

 

[J4CKO]

Cheers lads, its weird, a couple of years ago a grands worth of bike would have been unthinkable for me, now its a budget effort !

 

[Berger and Chips]

I wonder if this would be robust enough, Decathlon are well known for excellent quality budget full sussers and this says

"designed for novice freeriders looking for high speed thrills (in the mountains or in bike parks)"

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/rockrider-fr6-34963921/

It looks fairly robust, I wonder if it is robust enough or could be modded for under £1k to be robust enough for your trip?