Okay guys today we are going to be buying a first mountain bike and I'm going to show you how to do this properly and saving as much money as you can. So step one, you go, you pick out the bike you want and you put it in your credit card and worry about it next month. Today we're going to be looking at how to buy your first mountain bike. We're going to start with the basics and picking out your first hardtail. So we're going to start off with what a hardtail actually is. It's as simple as it sounds. No rear suspension. There's any bike that doesn't matter, a wheel size, whether it's front suspension or not. A hardtail bike can be described as one where the rigid rear end. Okay first of all I want to thank everyone for subscribing and we're going to keep making some videos like this to help you out. So picking out your first mountain bike you have to narrow down exactly what you're going to be doing. Are you going to be riding heavy trail or 50-50 commute or just a little bit of trail and then in the commute. So one of the big things when you're buying your first mountain bike is you want to look at the gears it's got. Most of them now are coming with two on the front and a variety on the back all. If you go to a higher end one you're actually simplifying it and just going to one gear on the front and then even more on the back. Generally with trail riding you don't need as many gears. You can skip the finer increments. You can go to a simplest system which makes it easier to ride, a little less maintenance and then less trouble while actually riding the trails. With a commuting bike you get lots of gears. You get lots of gears. That way you can always find that really come figure to keep your efficient speed up at. Using the Trek Merlin 7 as an example here. This is the 2019 model. It does have a three-by-system on it which I've changed this year to a 2-by and then it has a good amount of gears on the back or big nine speed. Many bikes now will come with hydraulic disc brakes so that good for trail use. All city use hydraulic disc brakes will just stop you faster and they're more consistent in all weather conditions. Hot, cold, wet, dry. They're just going to work. Wheel size isn't as important. You can spend days and I mean days looking online, 27.5, 29. Either the two is fine unless you're just looking for a budget option. Then that's where you go back to your 26. It does the job. It worked for years. There's nothing fancy about it. Nothing crazy new going on with the 26. 27.5 they say it's a little more playful. That's when I ride. 29 they say it's a little faster. Technically speaking, the 29 should roll faster but it's a little more wheel to handle. So once you've picked out the exact riding you'll be doing like trail, heavy trail or commuting, you narrow down the gears and then you look at the suspension. So each suspension for the most part will have a little marking on it saying exactly how thick the stanchions are. So these ones are a 28-mill stanchion. This is a stanchion. Essentially the larger that is the less it talks and twists. Therefore making your suspension more efficient. You go all the way up to say a 30 or a 32 and then on the big heavy trail bikes. On the big heavy trail bikes you're actually looking at bigger so you're looking at 32, 34. Sometimes the 36 but not too much on the trail bikes. Pretty simple. It stands for the diameter. So with a big 29 inch wheel standard width 2.2 2.4 wide that's kind of bike which you'll be able to cut really fast on. You'll have a fast roll not too much rolling resistance and that way you're going to be able to roll fast on the pavement, hard pack stuff and still have a fast speed on trail. When you look at something like these 27 5 plus you see them more and more on hardtails higher end, playful hardtails. These are for the bikes. These are for the riders who actually want to play around a little bit more, be a bit more aggressive. Don't care too much about the speed on on road or anything like this but you want a bit more forgiveness, a bit more comfort on the trail. That's where you go to plus size. We're going to go for one with a decent amount of gears, maybe a 2 by on the front with a good variety on the back and that's going to give us a mid-range trail bike. If you go higher to a 1 by or 1 by 12 or 11 that's when you're looking more trail. So down side to like a 1 by system is you're going to have less increments. That way if you're pedaling consistently non-stop on a flat smooth surface you might never find that perfectly configured to rolling. You might be too hard of pedaling or too soft of pedaling. So that's why they still have on these commuter style ones. Find an increments. It is a come for your ride for you overall. You've picked out your suspension. You want something a bit bigger than a 28 to give a bit more support because you know you're not going to go around the rocks. You're going to go over the rocks. Brakes were here. We were just assuming you went for the hydraulic disc brakes like say we have them in almost every single model just above the $500 m. Tyre size. You'll look at forever. 29 technically fast this but we'll have the longest wheelbase so technically not as a JLT. 27.5 you're going to be the most agile fast then 26. Pretty fast. 27.5 plus we'll just add you a little bit more comfort to it. A little bit more forgiveness plus they do like a little cool. One of your last steps is to think about frame geometry. So when you're looking at an entry level mount and bike they are going to have a come for your upright position to make you enjoy it more to make the road and commutes a little come for you a little more enjoyable. And then as you go up to trail bikes you get a little slacker so it's going to be able to take the roll as easy as it's not going to be as efficient for riding around town but a little more efficient for going downhill and over aggressive bumps. So last thing you need to look at is budget. How much do you have? How much do you want to spend? Essentially you can spend a limited on bikes. Is it necessary? No. Does it make a difference? Yes. I've said it before and I'll say it again. In the models you do notice better parts back better brakes really quickly whether or not you're on a trail and it's only going to be more noticeable on the trail. So if you get to chance to test ride a few bikes that's the best way to do it. Even if you're not test riding them exactly where you would normally ride them you're going to feel how the shifting changes. You have to look at what's different with the bikes whether that's going to make a difference for you or if it's not then it's not that big of a deal. I think geometry is the last thing you really need to think about it in the grand scheme of things for a beginner bike. Just focus on whether or not you want a wide set of gears and a come-fear ride on-road whether you want to be a little fast to off-road and you're okay with potentially not having those fine increments off the trail. So on-road. There's tons of bike options out there. It's always good to try them. Lots of the bike shops if not all of them will let you test ride them around. Hopefully they have a trail nearby if not it's not that big of a deal. I always find if you can notice something on the road you'll notice it on the trail five times as much. So don't focus too much on the little details. Stick to your budget. Stretch it a little bit if this financing and you have the cash flow available. But you don't need to start mountain biking on a $10,000 bike or $7,000 bike or even a $5,000 bike. You can start biking on a $600 bike. Just know it's going to be a bike which works really well on paved trails or groomed packed trails compared to the fast single track you may be watching in a Red Bull movie. So I hope this video helped. I hope it narrows down your options of bikes. Check out my other videos comparing the Marley & Series and the Roscoe series. And subscribe if you want to see more. Thank you to the first 100 people who have already done that. It's pretty awesome to do and see. And I'm going to keep making bike and videos. And we will add some motorcycles at too. We just need. Well that's why stuff to disappear.