So I’m thinking about buying a used BMX or mountain bike off craigslist to play around on, I don’t want to spend more than $100-$200. Despite all my searching, I’m having a tough time figuring out which one would match my style best.

Heres the thing, I’ve been riding dirt bikes for years, and I’ve been riding a GSX-R street bike for years, and until recently I never even painstaking a pedal bicycle thinking it would be lame compared to the powerful motorized bikes I’m used to riding, but I am considering buying a cheap used bike for a couple reasons. 1) for quick small 15 minute rides in the yard and in front of the house, o rmaybe a park, so I can have a small fun when I don’t have a half of a day to pack up the dirt bikes 2) For doing stuff like wheelies and endos in front of the house. Yeah, not nearly exciting as doing them on the GSXR, but at least I can just do them right outside and also without the worry of pricey repairs if you mess one up on the gsxr 3) I’m sort of attracted in doing some of the more technological trials type stuff that you can’t really do on a dirt bike or street bike.

Heres the type of things I want to be able to do. Endos, long controlled wheelies, bunny hops, 180 bunny hops, 180 endos, maybe a 360 but not likely, fakie rollbacks (or whatever you call it when you go backwards and flip around), and some basic trials type stuff like hopping on tiny stumps, or rocks, and stuff like hopping from the front tire to the back tire and other hopping and trials related stuff. I’d also like to be able to use it to go for the occasional trail ride, tiny jumps, and the occasional skatepark. I skepticism I’ll ever progress any farther than those tricks, so I don’t need some super professional bike, just one that I know won’t hold me back, and won’t have weak brakes or something like that.

Things I don’t really care about doing much would be any of the 360 tail whips, barspins maybe but they really don’t interest me much so likely no, any sort of peg grinds don’t interest me much.

Right now I’m leaning towards a mountain bike, since as far as I know, they can do all those same tricks I mentioned earlier lacking to do. And also, me being 6 feet tall and very muscular, a bmx just feels so dinky to me, I feel like a kid. But I’m sure they must have advantages, since 90% of the people at the skateparks, or that I ever come across doing freestyle stuff ride bmx’s. A mountain bike to me feels like a much closer match to dirt bikes and motorcycles that I’m used to. But at the same time, I’ve met alot of people who do ride dirt bikes, who ride bmx also, so I figure there has to be some advantages to them or they would ride mtb’s instead. I know on a mountain bike at least you can sit down and ride it normal when you want to, unlike a bmx where you feel like a clown sitting down, but perhaps its excellent for the trials type stuff to have a tiny bike, rather than a huge mountain bike?

I do really have a cheap wal mart mongoose bmx, that I dinked around on earlier, but it just feels so tiny, wheelies aren’t nearly as exciting as a dirt bike, and the cheapo brakes aren’t strong enough to do an endo so I don’t know. While I rode a mountain bike for a few minutes about a year ago (used to ride one as a kid also), and when I did wheelies and endos on the mountain bike, they felt much more fun than on the bmx.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of bmx vs mtb? Which one fits the style I described earlier? And what must I look for when buying a used one, such as a excellent brand that’s pretty cheap used, what type of brakes will be strong enough, and in the case of a mountain bike, do I want suspension, or does that make some of the tricks like 180 endos, bunny hops, or hopping on stumps or stuff harder to do because of the lack of direct connection to the impose a curfew, etc?

Thankfulness.

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