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We’d been hammering the Marin Northside Trail just before setting off on the 4300, and the Trek, at £200 less, was a bit of a surprise. The tyres are Bontrager’s fast-rolling but grippy (in all but slippery mud) Connection Trail 2in treads. There’s a decent set of wheels too: tough Bontrager Camino rims are laced to a Shimano rear hub and a no-name front model. The high-rise stem and low-rise 25in Crowbar handlebar work well together, the dual-compound grips are comfortable and the saddle is tough and comfy enough.Ī long seatpost allows riders up to just over 6ft to fit the 18in bike. Most of the other finishing parts are Bontrager-tagged. Also, they perform well enough unless you’re regularly riding in very muddy conditions. They’re lighter and they make price room for other more important parts upgrades. While disc brakes appeal to many riders looking at £300 bikes, we still tend to recommend rim brakes. The distinct click shifts of Shimano’s eight-speed budget combi shifters make them as beginner-friendly as anything on the market they performed without fault with the Shimano Alivio gear mechs. After this bedding-in period, the drivetrain was fine.
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It seems to be something to do with new chains lifting slightly on new chainring teeth, and it rarely happens beyond the first ride. We come across this occasionally on new bikes and we can’t quite work out what causes it. We had a few chain skipping problems with the SR Suntour crankset on the first ride: almost every time a lot of pressure was applied, typically on bumpy climbs, the chain slipped off the middle ring, once resulting in an unwelcome dive over the bar. Like most forks on bikes at this price, rebound damping is almost nonexistent and there’s a thunk every time the fork re-extends quickly. The RST Gila fork provides a plush 80mm (3.1in) of travel, with very effective preload dials on top of the legs – useful if you’re heavy, or if lots of your riding is on the road. Inevitably at this price, the geometry is dead neutral and casually sporty rather than race influenced. There are hose guides and brackets for disc brakes if you fancy upgrading, but the £370 disc version would be a better bet if you’re that way inclined. There’s also loads of mud room and useful features like rack mounts on the seatstays, two sets of bottle cage bosses and a big stack of stem height adjustment spacers. We really like the bi-axially ovalised, hydroformed down tube and curvy wishbone seatstays. The butted aluminium tubes exhibit the features and fine detail you normally only find at much higher prices. We really like Trek entry-level frames – a few years ago, frames of this quality would have cost £300 without the rest of the bike.