Just wondering what type of mountain bike ya’ll ride, if any? I haven’t seen any talk about off-road multisport racing and wonder if anyone else out there has tried it. It’s pretty cool for a change of scenery.
I’m using it as a way to get back into regular tri and du’s. I kinda lost my desire to log the miles, especialy on the bike, but riding trails on the MTB has got energized again. The road training is a lot easier to do with a new foucus.
I started out mountain biking, and have been doing it for around ten years. I had an old Mongoose Hilltopper(low end ~$400) that treated me right, ran okay, and never lost parts. It was good.
Last year, after much abuse from my wanker riding buddies(in my world, a wanker is a guy who pisses away loads of money on all the hottest gear, because they think that makes them better human beings) so I went shopping for a new bike.
I wanted a Jamis Dakota XC, a nice (steel) hardtail with good components, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Without starting up the Fe vs Al thing again, suffice it to say that I was not happy with the Al offerings. After much searching, I couldn’t find a decent steel hardtail in my price range, so I sold my soul to the devil and bought a Giant NRS 2.
This is supposed to be a great full suspension bike. I find it to be too twitchy for fast downhills, and the compact geometry makes it so that the seat is up too high to hang my ass over the rear wheel. I used to have a rep for going down some truly scary stuff, and I can’t now because I’ll endo.
Also, I have been replacing parts at a rate of $300-$500/year. That’s just silly. I only ride MTB once a week, and I don’t abuse my stuff.
Now that I have bored you with my story, I’ll give you my two cents worth. Find a bike that is comfortable and that you can afford. Keep in mind that the better the bike, the crappier the parts, by which I mean that parts like RaceFace Prodigy and Deore XT perform well, but are made of aluminum, so they have a useful life of less than one season. The lousy department store bikes suck, but everything is steel, which is why in the 8 years that I owned my Mongoose, I NEVER had to replace any chainrings or cassettes, and the guys at the bike shop were amazed they showed no wear.
Disc brakes are the new cool thing, and all the wankers(like the guys who write for the cycling rags) will tell you you’re a loser if you don’t have them. Well, be a loser. Disc brakes can be grabby, need a lot of adjustment, and, something they don’t tell you at the shop, when the rotor gets dinged, and it will, it usually can’t be straightened, and a new one is $40. Plain old cantilever brakes work just fine.
Regarding the suspension vs hardtail choice, if you ride a lot of trails, techincal stuff, and climbing, then I like hardtails. If you want to freeride, get a dualie.
I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you. Do ride any bike on actual trails before buying.
I did do an off road duathlon last season. It was very hard, and very crowded. Think about how crowded some of the regular tris you do are, and now put all those cyclists on singletrack. If the trail can’t support 300 riders, it gets ugly, especially if there is a section of the trail that goes from a fast flat to a steep incline.
Beyond that, I love MTB. It’s a great way to stay in shape, and you get to do a lot of high effort work mixed with recovery in a way that you often can’t on a road bike.
I got a Fuji thrill cheep and I am glad I bought it. The fuji is a hard tail and that works for me. I signed up for a 18 mile mt bike race which is exciting . I don’t ride a lot off road but I do enjoy it. A frame change would be nice. I like a steel frame. This winter we road on the ice a few times. We rented the ice rink put screws in a set of tires and enjoyed. It was a great change from the trainer.I to would like to do a off road race.
I have a Santa Cruz Superlight. I love it. I used to ride a Klein Attitude comp hard Tail but My back would ache after rides. I am getting old. I upgraded to full suspension. I feel great after rides now. I will respectfully disagree with my triathlete colleague about disc brakes. I use to think I can stop just fine with cantilevers, and I could. I have shimano discs and the feel and the stopping power are incredible. I dont know how to explain it but it is a great improvement. Cantilevers will be fine too though. There are many brands and many different designs so ride as many as you can. There are usually test days for some brands and I would look into those. Many shops wont let you take bikes on the actual trail though. I hope this helped. Good luck.
el
It’s okay. You’re allowed to like disc brakes. I think my problem is that the Avid CPS brakes I have don’t have much modulation. They’re almost binary. You have full speed ahead and you have flipping over the handlebars.
I’m mostly just frustrated because I consider myself a decent rider, not great, but better than most in the technical sections, and all the cool new technology hasn’t made my riding any better, but it costs me a lot in maintenance and parts. And the people I ride with agree that I rode better on my old Mongoose.
In any event, I’m focusing on training for IMUSA right now, but if there’s any money left over after the hotels bone me, I’ll look at trading in the NRS for a nice hardtail and go back to enjoying the rock gardens and root beds.
My favourite mountain bike is the Surly “Karate Monkey”. Think about it… Who in their right mind wouldn’t love to say that they ride a Karate Monkey? If you say not you, you’re lying! 
Name aside, Surly makes nice frames and I happen to prefer hardtails as well as steel. It’s 700c, so finding tyres could be a little more challenging, but I doubt it’s much harder than finding quality 650c tri tyres. (It’s the cheap-ass ones that area bitch to locate!)
I’ll admit that I also dig the fact that it’s a smaller company. Lance is great, and Trek makes nice bikes - but I’ll never own one.
I have an old Gary Fisher steel hardtail. I say “have” instead of “ride” b/c I haven’t ridden it in so long I’m too embarassed to actually write it. I know that if I start using it with any frequency, even more of my money will fly right out the window. It seems I can’t control myself when it comes to supporting my hobbies. Anyway, I too like steel in a mountain bike. Nice and durable. The bike held up beautifully when the head tube was rammed into the bottom of an open garage door that was made of iron. The yakima rack the bike was attached to is another story.
Ellsworth ID. A real ‘truck’ of a bike. Lots of suspension. I can sit through almost anything once the rear is dialed in.
Truth be told though, I’m not all that Gung Ho and kind of feel silly on the thing if all I want is ride some fire trails. Hence, I built up a Ritchey cyclocross steed, but have yet to take it out.
Anyway, the ID and the Ventana El Saltamontes are the kind of ‘go-anywhere’ trail bikes that make sense to me.
Enjoy.
GOT RID OF THE MTN BIKE. i LIKE MY OLD BMX BIKE THE MOST. 24" SE FLOVAL FLYER
kvr. mt bikes have become like skiis - the first question to ask is where you live and on what do you ride/race. terrain dictates what manner of bike will be the most fun to be on, to a goodly degree. if you are in the moab a different bike will make sense as opposed to to florida. where are you?
with that said, many of the above posters make a good deal of sense. as it happens i am at the mt bike races right now. i ride a 18 y/o rigid ( steel fork, even) bike set up as a singlespeed. i race against guys who are as good as me or likely faster, same age, astride 3500 dollar wonder bikes. i will beat most of them and some days all of them. my bike will be going strong in another eighteen years, with pretty much zero maintenence and theirs will all be outdated creaking piles of junk in another 4 years. just something to think about. fs bikes are fun, but in most locales are basically no faster than simpler hardtails - and, they wear out with no parts support at all from the industry, blow shocks, and require maintence. cool if you like that sort of thing but just realize none of it is going to get you down the trail faster, if faster is what you want.
as for ideas, look at www.gunnarbikes.com for something cheap, good, fast, and stylish. as many above note, steel hardtails are cool. as an aside, if you are a tri-head that foolishly sez you can’t tell the difference between steel and alu, ride a gunnar and a similar geometry mt bike from alu off road and then get back to me.
finally, susp seatposts were a great idea that was killed by the industry for marketing and sales reasons ( travis brown used a cane creek susp post to win a national championship and every picture run in every magazine and ad all year had it covered up, for example). try one, before you rule one out.
All my bikes are outdated now so whats the diff. With 10 speed road bikes and single speeds and cross and bmx and downhill and so on … I am just glad I have lots of kids so I can ride their bikes. With winter coming soon ( the temp was 42 this morning )dust off the MTN bike we will need it soon.More bikes is like more power a drug or freedom from bike trainers, fluid or rolers.I am going riding now before it snows.
Dirtball
PS. 10 speeds suck so do 9speed MTN bikes 
Once I boinged I never looked back… I’m lovin’ my Specialized FSR-XC. Don’t get to ride it as much as I’d like this year. Next year I’m gonna find and Xterra Tri to race. Smooth one the rough stuff and still not a bad climber. Helps if you are a natural spinner.
First off I live in the mountains and very technical trails are just outside of my front door. I’ll take my 5 & 6" travel bikes any day for these trails. In the winter disc brakes are the only ones that will work in crud 