Roadie dipping his toe in.

[1979Andrew]

Hi i ride roads bike and im looking for an oldschool mtb that i can use to take my lad out on the bike seat through woods,toepaths,gravel paths etc etc. Ive seen a Saracen Hardtrax for sale near me and it looks mint. Its had a recent service a new rear cassette amd new kenda tyres. Ive also seen a stock Trek 920 thats looks good altough its an hour and halves drive away.

Just not sure what to for. The TREK looks very cool and the Saracen is mint its kept indoors as well.

 

[1979Andrew]

Images below

 

[grantoury]

Both look fine. The Trek is more recent I think and more upmarket. The v brakes on the Trek are practical and easy to adjust.

 

[1979Andrew]

Thats intresting i thought the Trek was older. The Trek also has grip shifts which im not sure about. The seller says its all working fine

 

[eric_james]

The trek has the later cable brakes called v-brakes whereas the saracen has canti lever brakes
trek looks better
grip shift is alright, I had a bike with it once
some people love it and some hate it

 

[Mod-Master]

I’d go for the Saracen as it’s steel and looks nice in blue. Plus you have the added benefits of a DCD (Daves chain device, which holds the chain up tensioning it) and a rollamajig (the little roller thing that goes on barrel adjuster on the rear mech) which you could keep or sell on to recoup some money.

Gripshift ain’t bad, but you won’t know until you try it.

The most important question is what’s your budget. Perhaps you could get a nicer bike that just needs a bit of fixing up for the same price.

But if you just want a runaround then the Saracen is what I’d go with.

 

[1979Andrew]

The Saracen is £75. Ive seen a nice Specialized Hardrock with v-brakes and aluminium frame for £45, i think its low spec though. What do you think about that compared to the Saracen.

 

[Mod-Master]

@slackboy recently put up an ad for a 99(?) Specialized rockhopper for £50 not including seat qr and seat though.

 

[Mod-Master]

https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/specialized-rockhopper-19-large.466535/

 

[slackboy]

The Saracen is £75. Ive seen a nice Specialized Hardrock with v-brakes and aluminium frame for £45, i think its low spec though. What do you think about that compared to the Saracen.

View attachment 759869

spec is much better compared to the saracen , but frame is aluminium rather than the steel on the sacaren. As long as you are happy maintaining your own bikes (any of these bikes will need work - new cables, gears adusting, bearings regreasing) then I'd probably get the hard rock out of those 3.