Not for me - I'm happy with my Claud Butler hybrid. But my son has decided he wants a mountain bike. He had a cheap one as a teenager, but wants something a bit better this time. He's able to afford about £500/600. Any recommendations? He can't afford the top of the range ones in the thousands, but is hoping for a reasonable one in his price range.
I do not know if they are available or not, but has he thought of a re-conditioned second-hand top of the range bike?
Halfords or any bike shop have mountain bikes in from £50 for cheap ones & £200 to £600 for mid range decent ones plus Asda as bikes in £119
We haven't seen any as yet, but that would be ideal, if he could find one from someone he could trust.
I suggested he start with a really cheap one, but he won't hear of it - where we used to live he had friends who took it all very seriously and they were terrible snobs when it came to the make of bike! We haven't got a local bike shop any more and all the ones in reach seem to concentrate on hybrids or road bikes. So he may have to order online. As long as he doesn't expect me to help him put it together!
When I wanted a bicycle [just an ordinary one] for local shopping instead of wasting petrol, I bought a second-hand good make one from an advertisement for very little - I think it had been kept at the back of their garage, unused, for years. I then took into the local motorbike/cycle shop and had it reconditioned. New saddle, new brake cables and brakes, new tyres, new hand grips - the lot. It ended up like new but at a fraction of the cost of a new one of the same quality. I had a large basket fitted to the front, one huge one on the rear, plus paniers - and rarely used my car for shopping after that!
That sounds ideal. I only use mine for recreational riding along the Spa Trail, but I really should have a basket and paniers fitted so I could use it for shopping (though it would be rather hazardous here as the roads are narrow with lots of parked cars.) I did read somewhere that bicycle thieves are far less likely to steal a bike fitted with a basket etc!
They were not "basket" baskets but plastic covered wire baskets which were used for chest freezers, which I got from what was then Bejam, now Iceland. Ones that they were discarding as they were slightly bent or a bit of the plastic missing - I saw them stacked at the back of the store and asked about them, and was told to take as many as I wanted! Local, ie round the corner shopping where there were two facing parades of shops was no problem, but if I wanted to go to the main shopping area I had a steep hill to go up [no gears!] which was OK unloaded - well, I was a fair bit younger than I am now - and it was a wee bit dodgy going down when laden. Also some busy narrow roads but having started my "driving" many years earlier on a Lambretta I had learned not to try to hug the curb or get too close to parked cars, but to ride as if I had every right to be on the road. That way car drivers could see me and not try to crowd me, but I never went out during rush hours, only during quiet morning and/or afternoon times.
