What Should I buy?

[ELX]

I am looking to buy my new bike pretty soon like in the next month or so and I was just wondering what i could get for $2000 new or second hand. I would be using the bike for DH and am 41kgs and 14 years old. I only want a dually as i have ridden for almost 6 months on a hardtail and i want to be able to keep the bike for atleast 1 year so and DHing on a Hardtail is much harder than on a dually. Should i buy a DH Rig or a Freeride rig. Just want to know whats out there and good fo DH. I am asking now becuase if it's an 04 bike i will probably have to oredre it in. I dont mind going second hand. I am NOT buying now however so by all means tell me what your selling for that price that i could use but if it's not around in a month or 2 i wont be buying. Thanks guys :)

[Turley]

Well, until the 04 bikes are released no-one can realy help in that reguard. My recommendations owuld be a specialized Big hit sport (single pivot) just get the mozo's traded for a set of single crown 5 inch forks. DJ3's are the pefect candidate for the swap price range but, they are a little hard to set up well for DH.

[S.]

For $2k, you can get a lot of stuff second hand. I take it you're a pretty small guy if you're only 40kg, so you'd probably be best with a "freeride" bike like a Giant AC or Kona Stinky (or an FRM125 if you can find one - nobody seems to want to part with them though). Those tend to retail for $3k-4k, so $2k is a reasonable budget to get a year or so old bike like that second hand. Make sure that whatever you get, you're going to be comfortable on.

Seeing as you're light, you can also probably get away with shorter-travel suspension (ie 5" instead of 8") by just running softer springs. As long as your bike has decent brakes (preferably hydros or Avids), decent tyres (you can quite easily swap em round when you need to so that's not as important to come with the bike) and softish springs, you should be pretty much set. A lot of "problems" with using non-DH specific bikes for DH can be conquered by setup - springs, tyres (and a chainguide) and brakes make up most of this.

Personally, if I had $2k to spend, I'd look to spend about $1700 on the bike itself, and keep a bit of money to change around the things I didn't like (tyres, bars, whatever).

[Rik]

I like Sockets idea of spending, you'll need some protection if you want to go hard, IE decent helmet (ff?) gloves and pads.

[ELX]

Yeah. I have the protection i need mostly just need some elbow pads. But will a FR dually last me for 1 year or so.

[Az]

I've got one of those single pivot specialized big hits and have been really happy with it.

Can get them on clearance for about $1700 if you can find one. RRP $2k.

As for the mozo's they arent to bad at all as long as you keep the maintenance up.

Im a pretty big guy and use it for a bit of everything inc DH and havent had any major problems at all.