It's a fairly common misconception, that mountain biking requires a budget that is a similar size to some of the hills that people ride up and over. The term "budget mountain-bike" according to most sites and magazines seems to mean £500 at the very least, which is out of the range of a lot of potential MTB'ers. I don't mean to say that £500 is too much to spend, in fact it's probably about the right amount to spend, but if money is a little tight, why not spread the cost out over a period of time? What I'm talking about is to start off with a good base, and build up the components, it's less painful on the wallet, and you still get a nice bike at the end of it.
When I say "a good base", I am referring to the basic components of a bike, i.e. frame, forks, wheels and gears. These parts are all you should be worrying about as a starter, asking for a lot more than this means you need to start skimping on quality, and bits falling off is not a good thing :-( If you were to go out and buy these bits separately, you would probably spend the whole £500 in one lump, defeating the object entirely, but what other source of these parts can you imagine? As a complete bike of course. In buying a complete bike as a blank canvas, you get all the main bits you want at a good price, and you can ride it straight away to wear it in, ready for modification later on. The hardest part of building a budget MTB is finding a good starting point, I decided to choose £200 and stick to it. For this kind of money, you shouldn't really bother with hardcore bike-shops (yet), and instead start looking mainstream, Halfords instantly springs to mind. Now, Halfords may be a dirty word to some bikers, but if you look beyond all the nasty rubbish, you can find a real gem. The first thing to go was full suspension, a £200 full suspension bike is bound to be more trouble and maintenance than it's worth, and will be HEAVY. That left hard-tails, a seemingly obvious choice, but again, the wrong one. Quite frankly, springy forks are expensive, and when spending this little, it means some serious quality skimping elsewhere; besides, forks can be dealt with later.
So what does this leave you may ask? Well, believe it or not, a bike without suspension is not the cardinal sin the arrogant believe it to be, rigid forks are cheap and strong, meaning more money to spend elsewhere, a good thing. So what can you get for £200? Well, not a lot that hasn't been ruled out already, fortunately though, Halfords are an official stockist of GT mountain bikes, and as anyone will tell you, the triple triangle frame is nice, really nice. So how much will one set you back? Well, £200 exactly, actually. GT's 2001 model Palomar is exactly the same as the Aggressor range, save for the front suspension and paint jobs. A fully rigid bike with quick fire shifters, V-brakes and riser bars. As for our base, it has the triple triangle frame (in cro-moly) a reasonable set of wheels and tyres, and 21 gears to ensure smooth progress. As for the forks, well, they're also cro-moly, but are tough enough to take reasonable sized drops, providing you don't mind a few 'shockwaves' that is.
As a commuting bike, the Palomar is excellent, I know as I rode it to college for a couple of months, everyday. But commuting isn't all that much fun, you want to go trailblazing really, and that calls for modifications. Now, the two months between purchase and the free service Halfords offer with all bikes, allowed me to put away enough cash to stick some mods on. The main problems I found with the Palomar were brake fade, weight and rust. Yes, rust, now I know that 2 months of light use shouldn't cause rust, but fortunately, the only bits that rusted were the bits I had chosen to change. The Pro-maxx V-brakes are all well and good for short rides in dry warm weather, but in England, we just don't have that kind of weather, so those had to go. As for the weight problem (around 30lb's) I was going to kill two birds with one stone, lose the unsightly (and heavy) rusty steel headset and bars, and replace it with aluminium (cheap, light, looks good). One more thing to sort was the shifters, they would be great if the gears were a little further apart, but the slightly sluggish upchanges were no good with such a close ratio rear-set.
At this stage, around £150 is a good amount to set aside for some light mods, and that's exactly what I did. I decided that the brakes were my priority after a minor accident. Magura have recently launched the HS-12 Hydraulic set to replace the ageing but popular HS-11's. For those who don't know, the HS-12 brake set is fully Hydraulic, which translates to increased efficiency, greater variation in brake pull, and less exposed cable to rust. The brake set came in at an entirely reasonable £70.
Next was the problem of the headset and bars. I'm not an enemy of riser's by any means, but I didn't feel that comfortable cutting in and out of traffic with big wide bars, so I decided to replace them with standard semi-flat bars. The headset and bars had also rusted quite badly and looked unsightly, so aluminium was the obvious choice. Stem and bars courtesy of Trans-X for £10 each. Short bars are all very well for minimising space, but they do lose a little bit of control over risers, so I decided to remedy this problem with a set of X-lite bar ends, in gnurled aluminium they weigh nothing and look great, just £15.
Last but not least were the shifters, I'd heard great things about Shimano's range, so I decided to give some of their cheaper offerings a whirl, again, 7 speed quick fires. Noticeably lighter than the standard brake lever and shifter combo, they also look better and are much faster, they have a nice direct and snappy feel to them, and also seem well made and sturdy. An entirely reasonable £24.
With all this gear fitted (a meagre £10 labour charge) the bike looked great, but was a little front heavy in the styling stakes. Another chance to kill two birds with one stone, a rear whale tail would nicely balance the appearance, and keep my bag full of coursework in tip-top condition. I chose a translucent white one to match the frame colour, another bargain at £15. So none of the components were all that expensive.
The total for all this, including labour came to just £154.44, it would have been £20 or so cheaper if I had got it all mail order and done the work myself, but now the work is warranted and I lost use of the bike for less than 18 hours (in Friday evening, out Saturday lunchtime). I also invested in a new helmet at this time (old one worn out) but this wasn't a necessity so I haven't included it in the price. What I aim to do next is fit a decent set of suspension forks to the front (around £100) to soften potholes and soak up the rocks in the woods. But even without front suspension, the steel frame soaks up vibrations well and the new brakes (once warm) can stop a train. Careful pulling endos though, all I can say is, I'm glad I bought that helmet (oops).
I would have added my front forks sooner, but I've just had 5 weeks un-paid holiday (damned contract work) so it'll be a few weeks before I can afford them, but when I can, I'll be looking at a set or Rock Shox Judy's as the best compromise between price and performance, and a set of lighter, stronger wheels. This should tally up to around £550, and my bike should then have a similar spec to a brand new £550 bike, and maybe, just a little bit better.
Complaints? Well, as I said, I would have had my new forks by now, but I am working to a budget, so I guess it's only fair that I don't get impatient. All the rust was got rid of in the upgrade (unnecessary chrome on brakes, stem, bars) and the tyres are a little noisy (funny whooshing sound), but they more than make up for it in fast corner performance. I don't feel the need to replace the tyres yet, as I can't see any wear at all, despite several sessions of trick riding in car parks and a couple of wet-field burn outs.
All in all, I think I got myself a bargain, I have a nice bike, with the parts I want, I paid the right price and I my bank manager didn't ask me what I had just spent £3000 on. Obviously it's not imperative that you use the same parts I did, it is your bike, this is just a guide to show that it is perfectly possible get a lot, from a little.
Last Updated 10-03-2001
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