Originally Posted by
Wooderson
Just a decent frame, fork, and wheelset will blow your budget up, even used. Add the other bits (shifters, derailers, brakes, seatpost, clamp, saddle, stem, bar, cables, grips), and you're looking at $800 minimum for something you can ride offroad.
You may know what you want, but it is far from attainable at your budget.
You'll need to compromise, find a used hardtail, and for $400, it will probably be older and low end. It won't have an air fork, it might have rim brakes, and it might weigh 29lbs. Buy that, ride it, enjoy it, and save your money to upgrade down the road.
The problem is that you're buying at a really bad time. It's a sellers market, demand is high, and supply is low. And sadly, whatever you buy today will be worth half that when this craziness ends, maybe 6 months from now.
Yes, very bad time indeed! My local bike shop reports not keeping anything under $800 on the floor, especially family oriented and kids bikes.
Looking to upgrade my kid to a 24" MTB from her 20" BMX, nothing fancy, just something with some gear reduction so she can climb some trails with me.
Nothing decent under $175 when normally you can buy those all day at $60 and they are selling like hotcakes on CL and FBM.
Now this phenomenon helped me also - I had my cyclocross bike for sale starting in February. Not even one call on it. Then as soon as the isolation protocol in Washington took effect I had someone in my driveway handing me full price in cash ($625 for a 2011 Ridley Xbow, nice bike but really race-centric geometry and canti brakes). I was nice though and threw in a set of SPD/Platform combo pedals so they didn't have to stop at a store and find their own.