Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis Moon
It would be nice if it were complete... I have a Ridley X-Fire 'cross bike in Campy chorus I built for that price range... Should be able to do a XC bike for that... Right?
Aluminum is cool, although I've never been a fan.
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I think you can hit ~$1k pretty easily if you don't need latest/greatest/lightest.
Spend some money on a decent fork and make sure the wheels are functional.
I don't find aluminum to be too big a deal on a HT, though I kinda have preferred the ride of the steel HTs I've had. The big tires will mute a lot of the chattery feel, and you can typically get into a decent alloy frame for much less than a decent steel frame.
Any of the major manufacturers alloy HT frames are pretty good - the aforementioned Chisel/Crave/Carve, the Trek X-Caliber, Giant Fathom, Scott Scale, Kona Kahuna, maybe an older Santa Cruz Highball or one of Marin's current options.
If you're willing to go 27.5+ and stretch your budget,
this is local to you