fat bloke wants a new bike

[kazste]

Fancy a new mountain bike as mine is about 18years old. Won't be riding too hard as will mainly be with the wife, but did used to ride quite a lot and to a decent standard so would recognise a good bike when ridden.
And so onto the point of this thread, is this http://www.leisurelakesbikes.com/p/11714/santa-cru... any good? Budget is up to about £2.5k and want a good bike for the price, that said I do have a soft spot for orange, Santa Cruz and yeti due to my former years of biking.

Any guidance appreciated.

[anonymous-user]

You can not spend £2.5k and get a bad bike, you may need to consider a few things like size, weight and preferred riding terrain and ensure you choose something suitable. You may be comfier on a 29 for example.

Everyone will say 100mm isnt enough and dependent upon your size and weight, you may want something a little bigger in terms of travel but as mentioned, that depends where you are riding and what your intentions are, the Lapierre Zesty 314 and the Trek Fuel EX8 are worth a look too. I had a 100mm FS XC bike and it was found wanting a bit on the really rough stuff but it flew on the singletrack.

[kazste]

And see this is my problem, a new bike will encourage me to ride more as this is what happened when I bought my road bike but my weight is potentially too high still to get a lightweight xc bike (I currently weight 95kg). Riding will mainly be on the loose stone paths around my place with a few rides in the woods which my hard tail copes with reasonably well.
A 29er does appeal as the plan would be to keep the old bike as its good enough to keep (Marin pine mountain with full xt apart from hope hubs and manitou SL titanium forks) but too old to be worth anything.

I think you can get the super light in 29er format so might be worth a go.
My plan is to draw up a shortlist then go testing.