- Buying a new bike is
a really exciting time, but it's important that
you don't get carried away and you still buy the right bike for you. - Yeah, from the outside, the process can look almost kind of intimidating, it can be quite, seem quite complicated. There's also applications
and sizing to think about. - And you don't want to waste your money. There's a few ways of
buying bikes nowadays, let's start with the bike shop. We're here at Mud Dock, in Bristol. (bright music) (bright music) - [Man With Dark hair] Buying a new bike should be a fun experience. Hopefully we'll try and take some of that stress out of it for you. One of those stressful
things could be budget, so think about this early on. How much do you want
to spend on your bike? Try not to overspend on that cause that could not be good. Then the first most important thing is buying the right size bike. Even if a bike might be on sale, or it's in the nicest
paint color in the shop. Make sure you find the bike that fits you. This ones caught my eye it's
a brand new Cannondale Habit. It's all stealth, all black. I've seen Josh bikes on one of these. I want it! But it's a large this one in the shop. So, first thing I would do is actually check the manufactures website. So most of those will
have a really good guide on what size bike will fit you. So, if you put in your height- funny thing is I am sort of in
between sizes for most bikes. I'm 5'10" and I think
that's 178cm and actually most the bikes I ride
in fact all the bikes I ride are mediums,
but if you look at some manufactures websites they'll recommend the large for me. Personally I like smaller sized bikes as a bit more agile if you
like the more stable bike you may want to size up a little bit. But, what I go off really
is the reach number, and I've looked on the
Cannondale website and actually a large is a 460, so most of my bikes
are around the 440 mark and that's what I like. But actually a medium habit is 430. So actually right in the
middle of sizes I'm not sure I want to go down to a 430, so I think about probably
going up to a large. But the next thing to do is really to sit on that bike, and this only really counts if you know what you like
the bike to feel like. If you're quite new to mountain biking and you're still not sure what size is, then that's not going to help so much. You might need help from an expert, or try the bike out and take it for demo. The numbers on your bike, the jumps numbers are
going to tell you a lot about how that bikes going to fit. So, if your replacing a bike
if you're buying a new one. I would look at your old bike, look at the numbers on the
website for it's geometry then take note of that. It might be a bit smaller than you want, it might be a bit bigger than you want, but it's going to give you a good idea of the numbers you're going
to want from a new bike. So, like I said this is a large, reach is 460 so it's a bit big, bigger than I normally run, should say. And it does feel a bit big, this bikes a 29 as well so it does feel a little bit stretched
out, nothing too crazy. I could probably get used to it and the bike would be super stable. It's a pretty aggressive trail bike there so I could, just swap that stem out. So it's a 50 at the moment, I could run it down to
a 40 that would make it feel pretty right for me and
it would feel pretty stable. But, the other thing to
consider and I think the thing would be a problem for me
in this bike in the large, is of this big drop post
its got to be at least 150. That seats too high for me
at maximum extension and, even if I dropped it as far as I could it still would be too high, I know that, so I would have to then change seat posts on this bike to make it fit. Most drop manufactures
do have different sizes. The Crank Brothers do
one from 100 up to 170. So I think I would
probably have to go down to a one-two-five, something like
that to make this bike work. So, it could work for
me but I would probably stick to the medium size. Luckily, Mud Dock have got
a medium size habit in here. And to me already actually
that reach does feel better. So size wise I spare, it's
actually a cheaper build, this one it doesn't come
with a dropper seat post as we can see it's stuck out massively. So I could fit a big drop on this, ya know 170 is probably
the biggest that people make actually, and I can get away with it. Also you see the stand over
height is nice and low, so I think the medium
is the one I'd go for. (bright music) (bright music) - So, one of the age old
questions when buying a mountain bike is do
you go for a Hardtail or for a Full Suspension bike? So, if you bought two
bikes at the same price, say 1000 pounds, the full suspension bike would probably have a
lot lower componentry because they have to budget for the extra engineering in the frame and a rear shock. So, you might find that the Hardtail actually comes at a higher spec. And not all Hardtail's are
for less aggressive train, than full suspension bikes. You can get really light
cross country full sus', in the same way you can
get really aggressive burly built Hardtails. So, in talking about price let's look at this Cannondale Habit. Now, this is the alloy version. Which has got a sensible
but quite entry level build kit and it goes
for about 1800 pounds. Now, if you ticket a
Hardtail for about that same money you'll probably get, although not full suspension bike, but a far higher spec on the bike. - [Man With Dark Hair]
Hardtail all full suspension, I would say be realistic about what you use the bike for. if there's no big mountains near you you probably not get the best out of a down old bike and trailing Dura bikes peddle so well now. If your a big heavy rider
and you like doing jumps a cross country bike probably
isn't the best either. So, we have done a big
video on this subject of what bikes suits what best rider. So, if you've not seen that,
check that out already. So by now hopefully you've set your price, know what size bike you want, you know what style of bike it is. But also think about you're
probably not going to find the perfect bike off the shelf. I often would maybe think
about going for a bike maybe has a better suspension on it. So, therefore it has a
better shock on there and maybe a cheaper drive train. 'Cause a drive train is
really a conceivable thing so you can upgrade that
later on down the line. It's something I did with my Canyon Lux, my cross-country bike actually came with a grip shift on it. Everything else I really liked that came with a grip shift I actually
couldn't get on with. So, I like to hold my
dials right on the very end didn't work that nicely for me. But, it was a really simple
actually quite cheap switch just to put a trigger shifter on there. (bright music) - So before you splash all
your cash on your bike. It's worth remembering
you need to budget for some kind of necessary extra bits. Good place to start is with a helmet, its certainly somewhere I wouldn't suggest skimping and the are different styles. So, all the helmets are going
to be made to the basic level. They have to be to be sold within the UK. But as you spend more you're
going to get more features, more tech, better ventilation
and things like that. And of course, the manufactures all say the more expensive helmets
exceed the requirements. So, start with something
like this which is kind of your basic sort of cross
country or similar to a, actually a, road lid
basically the same thing. Quite shallow, really light
and really good breathability. Progressing onto something
like these which sit a bit deeper and they come with a visor. You kind of trail endure
helmets just something like that which actually has a chin bar. Sometimes they are fixed,
sometimes they are detachable. That's really more kind
of aggressive terrain and, you can actually get some
really beefy downhill helmets. Its certainly something
you want to think about. Other things like knee
pads, a decent pair of riding shorts, maybe even a lock. It's worth doing your
research before you spend all your money on just the
bike because you could be regretting not getting those parts. (bright music) (bright music) - So what about Online versus Bike Shops, pros and cons for each, but there aren't many online shops with a nice cafe like this. - No that's true. I mean I'm someone that, I think because I kind of
feel anyway, like I know my stuff a bit, I do
quite happily shop online. - [Man With Dark Hair] Yeah - [Man With Light Hair] But
you do miss out, I guess, on that personal that
community vibe as well. - [Man With Dark Hair] Well
it's obviously cheaper of course because you miss out on a couple of middle men with distributors
and the shop taking that cut. I've always been sort of versed in, well I'm old school, I've always been to shops,
had really good advice from shops, got to know people. I mean it depends if you
got a good local shop not everyone does they
might not live near to one. It's just nice to have
someone that can help me out potentially see the bike in real life, sit on the bike, see how it feels, and make a decision based off that. - [Man With Light hair]
and that's true actually because I know from working in shops that you actually sometimes
get to know the bike as well as the person. - Yeah right - And it will be a case of the bikes owner is almost secondary. - It will be like 'oh you know that Canyons driver that comes in quite a lot, but you know you always
take dimensions with' and you learn the history with it as well. - Its almost a dangerous
game cause if you go into a shop and you see your dream bike, in that dream color and
it's more than you want to pay then you think 'whoa,
that's it, I need it'. Although its safer than
online cause you could have had a couple of
glasses of beer at home and made a bad decision. (laughter) There's pitfalls in both areas. - Yeah totally. I feel like online is getting more streamline now so things like returns- I know a couple of years ago, it would always be a bit of
a bother, but now stuff like that isn't so bad but, you
still don't get to just try on all the different
shoes in the different sizes. - [Dark Haired Man] Yeah demoing bikes, like many shops have demo fleets, or can get ahold of the bike you're interested in to ride. Online it's possible, you do see many of them have like, in the UK, they might tour the trail
centers with a van full of bikes, so it is also possible, probably not as easy to
demo an online only brand. Well those few tips hopefully if your looking into buying a
bike that you could use. And hopefully this will help
you out when you're doing it. If you want to see that
video that I talked about earlier where we talked about full range of Canyon bikes so if you don't really know maybe what type of bike suits what type of rider check
over there for that one. - And if you want to go one step deeper into where our bikes come
from and how they're made check out Doddys tour of the Ivis factory, down here. - Thumbs up and hit that subscribe button.
