I can't tell you enough at how excited I am with the range of new bikes for 2010! As a lollyaholic in a candy store, looking at all the different varieties, it is at best very hard to choose which one to have. There are so many different colours and styles to choose from!  Ranging from hell for leather speedsters to vertical hill climbing chuggers!  It all depends on your tastes. (no pun intended) I myself, not blessed with much height...  and always checking the seat height first, thought that if i bought a small capacity bike like a 250TTR trail bike, it would be smaller than, say like a nice orange 530 KTM bike. Like little blue M&Ms versus big Jaffa's (funny that, they suite the same colours as the bikes) anyway oh how wrong could i be. I did however buy my 250TTR back 4 years ago now.  It is getting sad now but has been absolutley bullet proof, but it is still faithful and starts first time all the time. It is time for something bigger now - in capacity not height! Time to move forward!

So what should I get?  What should I be looking for?  Maybe looks first and everything else last?  

Put it this way I am 5" 6 and a half and 1 little bit.  Or 169 cm.  The problem is i am not only short (average) my legs are shorter for my body length.  That makes it doubly annoying.  SO when I ride I make sure that I stop next to a rock or tree or slope or try and balance like a gorilla on a tight rope when stopped.  Most of my mishaps occur when stopping ;)...

So I have figured out that I want a Trail Bike
The area that I live in and ride in is pretty Hilly, rocky, dry, forestry.  Somethimes I may head to a sandy area near the beach...  

The facts above have given me some good clues and narrowed the field down a bit.  
The Hills alone can be steep,  if you go up,  you have to come down as well - I have been riding a Trail bike which is different to an enduro bike and motocross bike.  I have got use to low down torque (grunt) and engine braking.  These two alone are awesome on hills. 

 


Lets have a look at a range of bikes in the trail bike section.

Now this is going to be personal to yourself - I was looking for something that was comfortable to ride on road as well,  smaller seat height, but good for hitting the trails with a little gusto..