Failing the $2,000 Bike Challenge - Opinion

"Bikes are so damn expensive these days,'' my buddy said to me with much more than just a tinge of angst in his voice while we poked through a local shop. ''Really, $8,000 for a freak'n bicycle isn't right. We're being fleeced,'' he went on before going down that ol' 'I can get a motorbike for that much money yadda yadda yadda' spiel. He's completely on-point, of course; he really can get a decent motorbike for that price. He continued his rant by saying the obvious; that a fancy Santa Cruz, Trek, or any other high-end push-bike costs around the same as a decent motorcycle but doesn't even include an engine, which leaves the taste of getting ripped off in his mouth.

Raise your hand if you've heard that tired comparison before, and now raise your other hand if you also get that same odd aftertaste. I bet a lot of you have both hands in the air right now.

I disagreed with him, however, and made the argument that the old motorbike vs. mountain bike comparison is silly, but not because of cost scaling or manufacturing quality and quantity, or even because one has an engine and the other doesn't. Instead, I think he's wrong because value is a subjective metric when we're talking about toys, which is exactly what these things are. Just like nearly everything that we buy, some people are willing to pay more or less depending on what the product means to them and what it'll do for them.

While I'll concede that the above is just my (correct) opinion, I then made this point to him: if you want, you can spend much, much more on a mountain bike than you could have ten or fifteen years ago but, at the other end of the MSRP spectrum, you're getting a hell of a lot more bike for your buck... I think.

And, because everything in my life has to end up being some sort of silly competition, he countered by challenging me to build a proper, trail-worthy mountain bike, a bike that I'd actually want to ride most days of the week for a few years, all for $2,000 USD. The ''want to ride'' part is the important bit; it'd be easy to spend less than half that amount on a bike that's singletrack-ready, but my rig needs to have a suspension fork, dropper post, and a bunch of gears because, well, I guess that I'm soft.




We ended up at the $2,000 figure because I said that I think it'll take $3,000 to get the job done but then I tried to remember the last time I had a spare three grand laying around and it's definitely never. So we went with a (slightly) more realistic number. And before you go off to type out a comment about how I'd be better off buying a complete bike, keep in mind that'd be too easy and that I don't want to buy a complete bike because then I couldn't write this rambling op-ed. In case it wasn't obvious, Ramen noodles are my number one ''nutrient source,'' and $2,000 is still a metric shit ton of money to me so, at the risk of raising the ire of many LBS diehards, I'll have to do my best to stretch my make-believe coin out by doing my theoretical shopping online. I'm building my $2,000 dream bike here, remember, and that means sniffing out the best deals.

This should be easy, I thought. $2,000 is more than enough money, I thought.

Because I want my machine to be shiny and new rather than save money by buying used but end up with a bike that looks like it's had a train run on it, I'm going to choose a hardtail frame with geometry that I like rather than a pricier or used full-suspension frame sporting similar numbers. Remember, when it comes to numbers, geometry is always more important than travel, and that's especially true when the other number - your budget - is on the small side.

Enter Kona's $550 USD steel Honzo ST frame. I'm all about those big wheels, the geometry leans more towards rowdiness than raciness, and while the steel frame is a boat anchor compared to the fancy pants carbon model I spent so much time on last year, my budget doesn't give a shit about weight. I could also save some coin by going single-speed thanks to the Honzo's nifty dropouts, but I'm only a part-time masochist and need gears.

For the stuff that makes me go, it's going to have to be a single-ring setup, and I'd love to get some 11-speed bits because I'm picky about those big jumps between gears. I found a complete Shimano SLX 1x drivetrain online that ticks all those boxes, and it's going for a pretty reasonable $224.99 USD on CRC. I don't need to spring for a guide (I hope) thanks to the clutch and 'ring design, and the 11-42 cassette and 30-tooth chainring will provide ample range for anything I don't want to walk up.

Next up: some sort of suspension fork. It'd be easy to blow half my budget on something fancy, but I'll need to show some restraint because I'd also like my bike to have wheels. Wheels help. Now, suspension companies seem to keep a pretty tight leash when it comes to online sales, but I did manage to find a current year RockShox Reba RL for $500 USD on Jensen that makes a lot of sense. I'd pick the 120mm-travel option, sans remote, and call it a day. I'm not a big guy and can get away with 32mm stanchions, but this is one component where I could see heavier people (#healthyateverysize) wanting something burlier.

So now I have a Kona Honzo ST frame ($550), an entire SLX 11-speed drivetrain ($224.99), and a Reba RL fork ($500); grand total so far: $1,274.99 USD. Eesh, this is more difficult than I expected. Next up is finding me some inexpensive but wide wheels, and a dropper post that won't break my budget or break itself. For the latter, I'm going to take a pass on the really inexpensive ones and go for X-Fusion's $199 USD Manic dropper with 150mm of stroke. I know how reliable the Manic has been and that's worth the extra money to me.

Wheels... this was a hard one. In an ideal world, there'd be loads of 29'' wheels that use a 30mm wide aluminum rim and sell for around $300 USD, but that's too much to ask, it seems. And yes, if I had a bigger budget, I'd direct more moola towards wheels as they have a big say in how a bike performs. My solution: DT Swiss' M 1900 Spline 30 wheelset sports a rim that's, you guessed it, 30mm wide internally, and Bike24 has a set on clearout for 274,90 € that translates to roughly $330 USD. They're pricey for my budget but everything else is too skinny (#healthyateverysize).

Uh oh, that puts me at $1,872 USD (without factoring in the government's cut), and I'm still missing any of the running gear that I'd also need. I'll probably require a stem, handlebar, grips, tires, and on and on, but I'll have better luck at crushing Richie Rude at deadlifts than I do of finding all of that for my remaining $128.

Thankfully, there are a handful of decent complete bikes that you can pick up for around $2,000 USD that are essentially ready to shred right off the showroom floor, which wasn't the case ten years ago. For that amount of money, you can find a bike with fun geometry, pretty good tires and running gear, a decent suspension fork, and even a dropper post. And that's a good thing because it looks like I failed the '$2,000 bike challenge' by a country mile. I admit defeat on this one, and I also have to admit that while I'm not surprised, I am kinda bummed that I'd have to part with well over $2,000 USD to piece together a burly, BC-worthy hardtail that won't fall apart after a hard year of use and that I'd want to keep around for a long time. Now it's your turn.

So, there you are with $2,000 burning a hole in your fanny pack but every complete bike that makes sense is out of stock. That means that if you want a mountain bike, your only choice is to piece it together a trail weapon for your needs... could you assemble a bike that you'd be happy to ride for a few years? And what would that bike look like?

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Stories Mike Levy