Upgrade forks or the whole bike?

lordrobs

lordrobs

lordrobs

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Joined
30 Sep 2003
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Norwich
I think I already know the answer to this but wanted the opinions of some others before I head in one direction or the other.

I have a GT Aggressor circa 1999 that I bought new when I was a poor student for about £180. I love this bike, it does everything I need in a MTB but obviously a £180 bike is going to have a cheap fork on it. In this case a Mozo M30.

Now the fork which was poor to start with is becoming even more wooden after 16 years! The rest of the bike is in pretty good shape and if I stick with it I'll be replacing the grips which have started to perish and I'll refurbish the bar which has some surface rust on it. The bike shifts well but downshifts no longer 'click' on the shifter.

My main issue is- should I replace the fork or buy another cheap (£400 ish) bike? If I replace the fork I wouldn't want to spend more than £100 fitted (don't have the skill or confidence to fit myself) which will get me either a Suntour or Rockshox XC28.

So should I put £100 in to the current bike or buy myself something like the Caliber 2.2 which seems to review well for the money?

Oh, and this is the bike in question from when it was new :p
 
you have to be careful on these older bikes, forks have got a lot longer since back in the day and it mucks the handling up if the fork is too long

the axle to crown measurement is pretty important. you can get away with a fork about an inch longer than the old one and just running a bit more sag, but much more than that and it'll handle like a bus
 
Cheers Saytan, I was worried about that. Does the amount of travel have an impact as well as the overall length? AFAIK the Mozo only has 65mm.

One thing I missed out of my original post is my riding. Basically I ride Thetford forest trail centre mainly on the two red routes and the rest of the off piste single track round that way.

I would also really like to move to disc brakes as when it gets sloppy I end up with that horrible scraping between the pads and rims.
 
I was going to suggest looking at disc brakes too, especially for damp forest riding etc, but again, you're looking at another good £110 for a set of cheap hydraulics, maybe it would be best to look at a new bike with discs fitted. £400 should get you a half decent entry level bike with hydraulics and lock out front suspension (handy for road riding).

Why not stick with GT, this has got almost £70 off bringing it into your budget.

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/gt/avalanche-comp-2015-mountain-bike-ec070828
 
Cheers guys, my mind was already heading in the new bike direction. Will have to wait until next year but I can still hack about on the current one until then. If I was just going to get a new fork I could have done that sooner but I think I'd end up spending new bike money over the next year on replacing the tired components.

I'd consider another GT as this one has been superb but I guess that the brand only really matters in terms of the frame, everything else is bolt on. Plenty of time to research in the mean time.
 
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