The World's Fattest Man with no bike! aka - find hippy a new bike aka - Just get ( fill in blank )

Checked, they’re 2.6 Rekon’s.

I have a Kona Unit X and I love it for bikepacking. Not the fastest bike mind. Not that I’m fast.

Large Shand if you’re feeling rich 🤑 💰 : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174645633170

Sorry but I've always hated Jones bikes. No ti, no curves, no extra bloody tubing, just give me a couple of triangles with a bouncy thing at the front :)

I like the price but I'd need to add a fork and are they any good? That's the problem with giving no shits about MTBing for 20 years - my knowledge sucks. It's also almost certainly going to come down to what I can get my hands on when I'm ready to throw money at someone.

Hey, bugger off to your own MTB thread. This is for fat man's XC/trail bike identity crisis posts.

Do I need a mullet to MTB? I was thinking of doing an undercut for some lockdown lols but I'm not a fan of the mullet - not enough sun protection.

I hate the colours. Is it cheap for what it is? Wasn't the new one £4k?

I'm in the same boat as you. Last new MTB I bought was 1992! Interested to see what you get. I quite fancy a Bootzipper myself.

I'm still looking. I'm at the point in my life where I'll spend a little more to get something a bit sexier but I'm not exactly gonna push the boat out on this. I'm betting, unless something great appears before my eyes I'll end up with one of the Surlys (because shops actually have stock and I like the brand) or that Solaris Max from Cotic because I like the guy's youtube review, it gets rated on here and the orange looks sweet. Yeah, that's about all I've got in terms of MTB knowledge - which colour looks better - I've basically turned into my missus when it comes to picking bikes. :S

You can get used to the handling of a bike, but you can't like a shitty colour

Haha I'm going to have to show the grrl that. She can use that the next time I rip on her for her bike choice.

On the road I normally end up buying a colour I don't like - the Mason I wanted black, they didn't have any, the Kinesis was the worst of two terrible options (although I like it now), the Shiv was supposed to be black but the red one was the same frame for £2000 less.

SolarisMax is just not available though whereas there's Surlys and stuff for sells now at bike24 and I don't know enough about this shit to know whether to wait or just buy one thing, build it and see what happens when I point it up or down a mountain.

How are you going to get the bike from bike.24 - are they now shipping to the UK again?

That could be an issue. How many Brexit voters do I need to sacrifice to appease the bike24 gods? #fuckbrexit

Actually, I've got people I could ship to in Poland or Spain so I could probably work around that.

I had a German colleague buy me something recently and send it over which I could not buy from the UK, so there are ways round it.

Challenge is paying VAT twice, plus import duty

Yeah, as I found out with posting to Europe recently. #fuckbrexit

https://www.stantonbikes.com/product/sherpa-gen-3/

Stanton Sherpas seem popular here. UK version or Taiwanese version though?

Is the single bottle cage mount a problem if most people are using camelbaks and/or framebags?
I have bottles on the gravel bike but I do have a camelbak

SolarisMax - I'm on the edge of Medium and Large sizing. What's the tipping point either way? Larger frame I could get more stuff on for bikepacking but the smaller frame is probably more 'fun' for everyday riding?

You have given up on steep HT angle!

Because everything at 68 seems to be a XC race bike, not a steel all-rounder.

Aye, the colour is dreadful, but that’s what resprays are for. Not bad for what it is, Shand are well thought of, but still a fair chunk of cash.

https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/chisel-comp/p/184105?color=291516-184105&searchText=91721-5101

I forgot about the Chisel. That could work but alu and not in stock anywhere. £1800 (but would need new cranks and a dropper added at least)

"Note to Ritchey customers in the United Kingdom: Because of limitations due to the recent Brexit agreement, Ritchey is unable to fulfill orders from the United Kingdom."

Sherpa Gen 2, it's the 17" though, which I'd be at the top of in sizing terms.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stanton-Sherpa-29er-17-853-Next-Gen2-Hardtail-Hope-XT-Pike-Rebuilt-New-Parts/184675135019

They say longer means more stable, shorter more playful. What I found is that shorter just means shit handling and lower back pain.