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After moving home to southend after years in london I think the a local xc option at hadleigh could be on the cards more. I set up my coiler more for gravity riding (sas wheels, wide bars, short stem, dual ply tyres, bolt through rear hub) which works well for Aston hill and not too heavy for danbury or any where a little pedaly. Basically im not sure if it would be better to spend a few hundred on some light wheels or a second hand entry level hard tail? Any thoughts?

Personally I would say, as you can never have too many bikes, get another bike for xc!

Welcome to Southend, get out on the kona with us locals and see how it goes, lighter bikes make life easier but not necessarily more fun

Sent using the force...

Narrower tyres would make you faster than lightening the bike

Eccles - I agree in theory, if money and space where no object I'd have about 10 bikes I think! But you're just made me think and just realised perhaps I can have too many bikes - my little shed is already congested; jump bike, full sus, wife's mtb & her town bike, plus snowboards, lawn mower, tool kits, spare / junk parts box... I think the decision may have been made for me!

Thanks Jon, I'm sure I'll be tagging along for a ride some time soon just a bit tied up with work and study for another month or so, for the moment just a quick lunch time day-dream about riding and internet window shop for new kit. I did manage a little blast round Hadleigh a few weeks ago and found how to get to the olympic track. There where signes not to ride so I was just going to have a quick sneaky go on the features but found the lead of faith has a wooden fence at the bottom to stop people riding it. I can understan why as it's not open yet but that's no fun! I didn't bother looking any further but made me think that once it's open I would like to ride there - hence thinking about having to pedal a bit more.

Nwm - yeah had in mind a the combination of am/xc wheels with lighter tyres set up ready to switch in for more xc type rides.

Question now is which ones - Superstar for get good reviews value for money so looks like it could be their AM wheels and as I'm a fan of Maxis, ardents or xc high rollers. Now for a bit of internet research...

Superstars am wheels are still pretty burly
what about mavic crossmax?

Yeah sounds like a better idea

Any of these of interest ?

http://ride.io/forum/index.php/topic,26 ... cseen.html

High rollers hold up very very well around our area, even for an idiot like me !

You can get up to deanes drop which is outside the fence for soem reason ? and sort of ride around the blockage and jump off the small berm at the bottom and carry on down murder hill right to the bottom, its a bit of a roller coaster, but fun all the same, although getting a bike up deanes drop is hard work for 2 secs of coming back down LOL when its open locals will probably open that right up, should be a good laugh !

As for bike type thats tricky and down to personal preference, there is little need for a DH rig if you only ride local, if you go further a field then a well built full suss AM concentrating on durability rather than weight loss would rule i guess, unless you're going to commute to proper full on DH facilities ??

Yeah - I'll still be heading to Aston etc but was thinking about what's local if I only have a couple of hours spare.