Best bargain full-suspension bike | Mountain Bike Rider

Everyone’s seen halo bikes with jaw dropping price tags – brands one-upping each other with increasingly extravagant builds and exotic materials. And tantalizing as these dream bikes are, often it’s a game of diminishing returns, especially when it comes to performance. Thankfully, there are also select brands focused on the opposite end of the market. Their sole purpose: to provide the highest-performance bikes at the most competitive prices. In many ways it’s here that design is truly cutting-edge, the constraints of tighter budgets making every component choice that much more critical to ride quality. So this month we’re taking a closer look at three suspension bikes that don’t cost the earth, but still promise the world: The Calibre Bossnut, Vitus Mythique 27 VR and VooDoo Canzo. Prices range from £1,000 for the VooDoo to £1,249.99 for the Vitus, the Calibre occupying the middle ground at £1,100. Selling direct keeps costs chains; whether that’s through high street multiples, in the case of retail-specific brands like Calibre and VooDoo, or by shipping direct to your door, as Vitus does. But it is no coincidence that there aren’t any proper full-suspension mountain bikes under £1k. It’s not by chance either, that most entry-level full-suspension bikes come with 27.5in wheels. Not only are they lighter and stronger; because the fork can be shorter for a given amount of travel, they are also stiffer, so handling can be improved without having to fit a more expensive fork. It’s primarily why we chose the 27.5in version the Vitus Mythique, even though there’s also a 29in option for the exact same money. So we have three evenly matched suspension bikes that won’t break the bank. But which one delivers the best bang for your buck? Time stamps: Voodoo 04:08 Vitus 09:29 Calibre 14:25 Click here to subscribe:    / mbrmagaz.  . More at: MBR: http://www.mbr.co.uk/ Facebook:   / mbrmagazine   Twitter:   / mbrmagazine   Instagram:   / mbrmagazine.  .