Our local Safeway is selling MTB's for £60. I cast my non-expert eye over it and it looks like its got all the right bits; 18 gears with grip shifter, caliper style breaks, handlebars, a saddle etc.
It wasn't particularly light so probably had a steel frame. There was no suspension but then proper MTB's didn't have suspension a few years ago and that wasn't a problem then.

Is it a bargain at this price or would it be likely to fall apart the first day I took it off-road ?

Is it worth buying at this price with a view to gradually replacing the components with quality components over time.

If it gets you out cycling then it's worth it. But if you get the bug, you'd really want to replace it rather than upgrade it. I started on an old second-hand catalogue rigid mtb, which I've still got as a 'hack' bike, but when the bug bit, went out and bought a 'proper' mtb.

It's probably worth spending a bit more. You can get quite a reasonable alloy-framed bike for about £200-£250 or so, which is more than 60 quid, but not that much more and would be significantly lighter, which makes a big difference off road.

Take a look at What Mountain Bike magazine, tends to cover everything from starter bikes right through to top-end stuff.

Inidentally, the headset on my bike alone cost 60 quid, which says something, though I'm not sure exactly what...

Yep... It's got nick Jon's bike written all over it!

Actually it says 'Hope'. I like the fact that my mountain bike has 'Hope' written on it.

Is that *hope* you can find somewhere to ride it ? It's just that I notice most of the paths in the Peak national park seem to prohibit bikes.

You're kidding right? The Peak has some of the best mountain biking in the UK. There are plenty of excellent and legal bridleways around, though I suppose on balance, more footpaths where you're not allowed to ride.

I've not really noticed it from a bikers perspective but I've noticed that the paths around the goyt valley that I use regularly seem to prohibit them. Some of them probably aren't suitable to be honest as they're narrow and very steep in places.

I was in Macclesfield Forest at the weekend and they were banned there aswell even though the path was broad and had stones on it - I really couldn't see the problem there at all.

Makes me wonder whether a road bike would be a better option.

Basically you're not allowed to ride bicycles on footpaths regardless of the sign, it's just that in popular areas like the Goyt Valley, the Peak Park Authority / Council have got into putting signs up to make the situation clear, but there are plenty of bridleways around, particularly in the Hayfield, Hope, Castleton, Ladybower, Edale areas. You just have use a bit of ingenuity and like I said, there are plenty of legal bike trails around.

The classification of rights of way has nowt much to do with suitability for use, there are plently of hard-surfaced, bombproof footpaths that you can't ride along with soft, boggy eriosion-prone bridleways that you can. It's all mad.

Road bike? If you like road riding, I suppose so, but it's the technical off road bits that make mountain biking interesting. It's like scrambling compared to walking, you just have to think a little harder. I really like mountain biking. Not as much as I like mountaineering, but it's a different thing altogether.

If you're not sure, try hiring a bike for a day and see what you think. The Peak Park Authority have a few hire centres, see:
www.peakdistrict.org

The £60 bike might be bargain of the century but as Jon says I wouldn't have thought you'd get away with spending much less that £200-£300 on a new bike for some fairly basic quality.

Why not consider buying second-hand? If you do, make friends with a local bike shop and get them to look it over before you use it. I'd guess it would be better to avoid fancy stuff like suspension frames and forks if you're going to go down this route.

It would be ok for riding to the shops on though.

But don't even think about taking it off-road. It would be such a hateful experience it might put you off mtb'ing altogether.

The good thing is that mountain bikes are massively better value for money than they used to be. About ten years ago, £450 quid would buy you a 29-30lb steel rigid bike with useless cantilever brakes. Now for the same money you'll get an aluminium framed bike with reasonably capable front suspension and - if you choose correctly - loads of potential for upgrading. Better gears, brakes that work and an all in weight of maybe 27lb.

Off road riding though is very, very tough on components.

It all depends on what Andrew means by 'off road', ie Jacob's Ladder or Tissington Trail. You could certainly take a £60 bike on most of the bridleways and canal tow-paths around here, I know because I've done it. I reckon if you've not got £200-£400 to spend and you're not going to do anything demanding, then go for it. Don't bother upgrading it, if you find you enjoy it, start saving up your pennies....

I wouldn't consider the Tissington Trail off-road, its just a road with no cars on it. In fact its a lot flatter and straighter than most roads.

I'm too late anyway, I noticed that Safeway have sold out. I think I'll save up around £400 and get a road bike.

I think mountain bikes would be more of a burden than an asset off-road. In fact a couple of weeks ago I passed a mountain biker coming in the opposite direction to me in the Goyt Valley when I was running. About 45 mins later I passed him again as I was nearly home. This meant that he must have done the same route as me and in a very similar time. The route was about 2/3 road, and 1/3 gravel track. So what's the point of a mountain bike ?

A road bike on the hand, I could probably average 20mph cycling compared with 8mph running - it opens up many new routes.

I think I'll save my pennies and get a reasonable road bike.

Well, the point of a mountain bike is to be able to ride technical off road trails and cover distance off road a lot more easily and, debatably, with more intrinsic technical interest than you would walking or even running.

If you can run, say, a 20-mile technical loop in the Peak as fast as I can bike it, I'll buy you a bottle of champagne :-) Bikes are much faster downhill and on the flat than runners, trust me. And there's a lot of downhill around. A fit rider won't lose that much ground uphill either.

Overall it just depends why you're buying a bike. If it's just to cover distance then yes, it's easier and faster riding on tarmac. If it's for training effect, then mountain biking is more of a whole body work out than roading it. If it's CV then it's easier to hold steady rates on a road bike. If you're just into offroad biking like me because it's great then having a mountain bike makes a lot of sense.

One last thought, you can always stick slicks on a mountain bike and have a reasonably competent road machine, but you can't do it the other way round. Unless, I suppose, you have a cross bike and skills to match.

"The route was about 2/3 road, and 1/3 gravel track" I think you'll find he stopped for a picnic along the way. Over that sort of terrain, there's no way a runner would be able to keep up even with me and I don't think of myself as particularly fit (ie like Jon).

I mountain bike because I enjoy it, the fitness thing for me is just a by-product. Jon's analogy of mtbing is to road cycling as scrambling is to walking is a good one as it exercises the mind as well as the body.

It also gets you off the road and away from those bleeding motorists.

To be honest it's horses for courses, if you're going to be doing more road riding, then definitely get a road bike, a mtn nike with slicks on will do the job, but not as well, it'll be heavier, not as highly geared and you'll not be needing the suspension & so wasting unnecessry energy.

But as John says, you wouldn't be able to take a road bike on proper off-road stuff, though I have seen a few riding in the NY moors, though they were replacing a puncture :-)

Regarding the no. of no bikes signs, I was on the road bike at the w\end in the Peak (hope discs on mtn bike were leaking after a bad service!) and the no. of signs round the Goyt valley was unbelievable, all looked perfectly rideable, one was landrover width and had vehicle tracks on it.

Sure there are plenty of bridleway's in the Peak, but it could still be better still.

Incidentally worse thing out on the road bike at the weekend wasn't the number of cars, but the number of v.noisey motorbikes.

Theres some lovely quite roads through the Goyt Valley that are closed to cars at the weekend. These would be great for cycling. They're not very long though, I do a loop from Buxton up Long Hill (B5003 I think) down to Errwood Resrv, left up the valley road to Derbyshire Bridge, carry on over the A537, minor road over Axe Edge then down onto the Leek Road before turning back into Buxton. That route is just short of 11 miles which is a nice length for a run also apart from Long Hill and the Leek Road its pretty much traffic free.

I really can't understand why you can't mtb on the tracks though, two of them are dissused roads that still have the hardcore down in places. What possible environmental damage is going to be done by a bike on there.

That's the thing, rights of way have nothing whatsoever to do with logic or suitability, most are just an accident of history. There are some stonkers around - paths that start as bridleway then change to footpath halfway along in the middle of nowhere when they cross a boundary and stuff in the Lakes that's marked as bridleway on the map, but barely exist on the ground. Metalled roads which are technically footpaths, but illegal to ride on a bike, etc, etc...

Jon,
Hassle the Highway Authority (usually county council) when a bridleway crosses a boundary and becomes a footpath. usually it's been 'downgraded' due to lazyness on behalf of some highways clerk.
The Definitive Map or List of Streets is supposed to be maintained by the HA. If you can show that a path should have rights such as a bridleway (from the LoS) then that's what is is despite what to OS map shows. The Los should be available to view at town halls. Sometimes it does take a bit of effort - Telford and Wrekin's definitive map doesn't even show the M54!

Also point out the badly eroded bridleway. The HA has a "statutory duty to maintain the highway". This duty is not optional.

Most rights of way officers are dedicated bikers/riders/4x4 users and take these matters as seriously as they should (often with a personal interst) - after all, they might be able to use the path/byway too.