I swear by my Kona Kikapu, in fact it's featured in this weeks "Bicycling" magazine. Since I switched to full-suspension, I would never go back. That said, I do a lot of mountain biking. A good rule of thumb that I recommend is to take your annual mountain biking mileage and that becomes your bike budget. For example, it you annually ride 1,000 miles on your mountain bike; that would justify spending $1,000 on yourself for a good mountain bike.

If you ride less than 1,000 annual miles, I wouldn't spend the extra for full-suspension. In my opinion, $1,000 is about the least amount of money one can spend and still get a "good" full-suspension bike.

Also important to me, was the way my bike 'looked'. Trek, Specialized, Gary Fisher, Cannondale, Specialized, Giant, Fuji, Santa Cruz, and Kona; all make great mountain bikes and all of them have distinctly different "looks" to them. Buy a bike that you'll want to spend a lot of time on.

J.

P.S. Road biking miles go by much faster and smoother. For road biking I recommend spending a $1 for every 2 miles of annual travel.