Any used MTB from a major brand that is from 2018 or newer.
Donāt get something much bigger than a 150 b/c plow life isnt something to start on ATMO.
There are a few old drumlins (piles of gravel that form under ice) that drain super well and are great to ride in the wet. (Tokul) There are plenty of pockets of other XC stuff that I never ride but are out there and good enough all year (grand ridge).
There are plenty of people who ride all the trails year round tooā¦
The general order of drying out is.
Good in the wet
Tokul
Mitchell hill (bootleg trails)
Port Gamble
Dries out first to last
RAZZ (exit 27 eastern aspect)
Exit 27 West side
Tiger (bootleg woods trails)
Tiger Everything else
Most of Tiger and some other bootleg stuff like Bessemer is under snow most of the winter, right about 3k feet is the snow line.
If you got a MTB now and rode tokul all winter you would be primed to start riding Tiger when it dries out.
I would say 150/160 fork is fine and it is nice to have it there to save your butt, esp. since you all have some great and gnarly trails over there. Maybe not a 150/160 rear end? Not a coil, etc.
I met another local rider yesterday. Guy moved to town from somewhere in Oregon 5 or so years ago and decided on here specifically because of the hill we have. Pretty unique in the Hudson Valley. Anyway, he was on a 150mm Ibis ripmo with a fox 38 on it. I was on my 120mm weenie bike above. We were riding the same trail but having completely different experiences. He mentioned a few times that he actually wanted a slightly bigger bike for the terrain here. So Iād say terrain would be one way to think about how big of a bike you get.
A second cautionary or inspiring tale: when I bought my very much downhill-oriented mtb I didnāt know what I was getting into. I rode by stuff my first year or two that I thought Iād never want to attempt. Now those parts of the trail are my happy place. Which is to say that the type of bike you get might dictate what kind of riding you end up enjoying.
Agreeā¦ some of this is also bike geometry. Just that most bikes above 150 tend more towards the plow plow plow style of riding, which I dont think is great for beginnersā¦ mostly because a 170 bike with long and slack geo isnt fun on low angle smooth trailsā¦
@Shamp
This is the same bike I have. It rips.
With light tires you can do all day alpine shit, with burly ones you can ride anything in the i90 corridor.
not saying thats not true but MTB has about a 10/1 climb to descent ratio and a typical ride here has about 2,000 ft or more per 10 milesā¦ so consider that as you are getting into it here.
Whatās great about mtbing is that if the descent is more than 10 minutes your hands are so tired you can barely hold on, so you are somehow satisfied with the fact that you climbed an hour to descend for 7 minutes.
Gonna hard agree with this statement. Going too xc will make you think the hard stuff is too hard unless you want to be a racer boi.
130-140 is the sweet spot atmo until you get more experience.
Thatās what i had for my first two MTBs and then i started hitting the limit of my suspension and plowing into rocks too fast and moved up a level to a 150mm travel bike that liked plowing straight through things a bit better.