I am thinking about purchasing my first mountain bike....dont want to break the bank to see if my new hobby will last anyone reccomend any good used bike shops or entry level bikes thanks
I think the REI entry level mountain bikes are fairly decent and fairly well priced. I imagine you could probably find something cheaper at the same quality (since it is REI we're talking about here, not exactly Walmart), but the convenience of REI, combined with knowing its a good brand, led me that way. I think I paid $400 - $500. Mine is something like this Novarra , but it was on sale, and I think they were about to come out with the next year's version (which was essentially the same, but made what I got cheaper). My other comment is that, especially in Houston, there isn't a lot of mountain bike opportunity. If you are in Houston, and are just interested in taking up biking, you may want to think about a road bike, or a hybrid...
I was thinking about getting a mountain bike and switching to slick tires, to make my own hybrid thanks and ill def go check out rei
ouch man, you have one of the best XC MTBs and you dont ride it maybe you should check out the new Transition Bottlerockets (no pun intended). for the thread starter, i would suggest actually renting a mtn bike first, a decent new entry level bike would be around $500, and goes up to thousands. my first real mtn bike was a specialized rockhopper, the base model is around $500, but i am sure you can get the 06's for cheap since the 07 just got revealed at interbike weeks ago. its a quite expensive hobby, and i currently rock this ride: yes its actually my bike, 05 giant reign, marzocchi z1 light, tru vativ holzfeller cranks, hayes-9 hydro brakes, full ****mano LX, soon to be sram x-0, and new mavic crossmax XLs coming soon. anyways, just start by renting, and see how it is beforing dropping 500, and another thing is, you will soon look forward for dual suspension, and thats gona be very very expensive.
