Fluid Nitro Sports Mountain Bike vs REID MTB Sports

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  neb2101 on 26/08/2018 - 22:17

  +3

  From a quick look here and here, the following differences stand out:

  • Brakes - the Fluid has disc brakes while the Reid has V-brakes. While I'm not familiar with this end of the market, the general benefits of discs are that they perform better in wet conditions and have better modulation when you pull the lever, leading to smoothing braking.
  • Wheels - 27.5" diameter on the Fluid; 26" on the Reid. The Fluid has slightly fatter (wider) tyres too. Relative to 26", the 27.5" are more forgiving (i.e. smoother ride) and will have a higher top speed. Fatter tyres are slower, but can be swapped out.
  • Rear cassette - the Fluid has a 12-32 while the Reid is 14-28. Given that the front chainrings are the same between the two, this means that the Fluid has a wider range of gear options, including higher and lower combinations than the Reid. This will assist with going faster, and being able to climb steeper hills.

  Suggest you go with the Fluid - it's better and cheaper.

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  Barginer on 26/08/2018 - 23:10

  Thanks for the advise Neb. Do you have any views on the difference in shift levers? Reid’s shift levers seems more integrated with the handle but less intuitive to operate.

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  Euphemistic on 27/08/2018 - 06:47

  +1

  Do you intend to ride off road at all? These two bikes are very basic and while they will do the job to start, they aren’t built to withstand regular off road riding. Fire trails will be fine, but not when the going gets a bit rough.

  Cheap cable disc brakes may not be as good as v brakes in the dry.

  Anaconda often inflate their RRP for bikes. It isn’t really a $699 bike, but does appear pretty good value at $250

  There isn’t much difference in gripshift and trigger shift, but grip shift tends to be only on low end bikes, I don’t think it shifts as accurately and being in the grips can lead to the occasional miss shift.

  As always, for that budget new is not best. Buying a lightly used quality bike for $250 is quite possible and you get a much better ride.

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  Barginer on 27/08/2018 - 07:05

  Thanks Euphemistic, no intention to go anywhere rougher than fire trails at this stage. Not sure how to differentiate used quality bike and value for money. Any good website where I can start educating myself about it? Thanks.

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    Euphemistic on 27/08/2018 - 09:28

    Bicycles.net.au have some informative forums.

    In you are reasonably handy with diy maintaining a bike isn’t too hard. YouTube has plenty of videos on how to do it, and most things can be sorted with a set of Allen keys. There are a few specialist tools, but they aren’t needed for everyday adjusting

    To find a decent used bike, first get familiar with ‘bike shop’ brands like giant, Avanti, specialized and learn which are Kmart brands to avoid like huffy, diamond back, cyclops. Once you are familiar with the brands it isn’t too hard to look up online where the model fits in the lineup to then determine its original rrp.

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  Barginer on 27/08/2018 - 12:05

  Thanks for he helpful tips Euphemistic.