Video: Best $1000 mountain bike shootout
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As technology advances, the rate of many mountain bikes has gone through the roof. Is it even possible to get a good mountain bike for $1,000 or less? Yes!
For riders by the skin of one's teeth getting started — or those looking to get a new mountain bike without breaking the break — there are a few orderly options. We recently trail-tested 10 mountain bikes that cost $1,000 or less, and came away with some surprising finds.
If it's been five years or more since you last bought a mountain bike, you quite have a bike with 26-inch wheels . The trend these days is 'bigger is larger' — and nearly all the models tested have 29-inch wheels. For those of you new to mountain biking — invited! The benefits of 29-inch wheels are plentiful: you can roll over obstacles more doubtlessly, you have more suspension in your tires with the larger volume of air, and you can get better traction than with a 26-inch pivot.
BikeRadar sent out a five-man test crew over the course of a few days to analysis ride 10 bikes over and over on a 3-mile loop. Special prominence was given to each bike's elements of control — the brakes, the suspension and the tires.
At this pricepoint, bike companies are restricted in what types of parts, suspension forks and wheels they can use. But, as BikeRadar mechanical editor James Huang likes to point out, geometry is sprung. Geometry means the angles of the bike's tubes, which have a huge impact on how the bike handles.
Source: BikeRadar.com