MTB advice / options?

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ike2112
Posts: 47
Joined: 19 May 2020, 10:57pm

MTB advice / options?

Post by ike2112 »

Looking for suggestions.

Am looking for a new mountain bike of similar spec to my current Orbea Alma H30. But ideally not as high a standover, and perhaps 27.5" wheels instead of 29s.
Probably looking to spend £1,000 max - I'd already spent almost £900 on the Alma and assume I'll lose a fair bit when I sell it on.

Many bikes I've found online so far have most of the spec but maybe don't have tubeless rims or have a triple of double gearing instead of 1x.

I bought the Orbea Alma start of year before lockdown, mostly to have an aluminium frame for attaching kids bike seat to (my road bikes all carbon), but also for some casual riding myself on some basic trails and occasional rides in the Grampians on holiday.

Spec includes:
  • Air fork with lockout (it's a RockShox 30 Silver TK Crown adjust QR Solo Air 100 - but I'm not too precious about brand/spec)
  • Tubeless rims/tyres
  • 1x drive train with 32T front ring and 12sp 11-51 cassette (again I'm not too precious about specifics but having this range of gear ratios is good for the super-steep stuff).

Key though is I need something with shorter standover. The current bike is a 29" wheel with a 791mm standover, which is far too high - I can barely get my leg over the toptube without roundhousing my kid in the jaw.
It also has a surprisingly long stem for a MTB in my admittedly limited experience.
I personally find the bike quite unweildy and not too agile; yet reviews of it suggest otherwise so I am thinking more that's due to sizing. Its a size Large frame and I think that's the big contributing factor - I am 180cm tall so was just on the cusp of Large over Medium but the bike feels far too big.
I was also coming from a 10yr old Specialized Rockhopper Sport that had 26" wheels so that felt a lot more agile.

I tried a Medium Rockrider AM 100 HT Trail from Decathlon a few weeks ago and it felt much better for size. Unfortunately they don't seem to have geometry online but I measured the standover to be 740mm, and double unfortunately that one had a broken fork lockout so wasn't for sale. It was also pretty heavy. But a bike of that sort of spec and size would be ideal.

Any suggestions?
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