As the title says, I'm trying to decide for one of those options, they will be my first MTB and those are the ones that fit my budget atm, I have been comparing both and they look close but I'm no expert
I'll be riding them sometimes in the city, but I plan on going to some bike parks, dirt paths, some rocky paths, with roots and similar obstacles, I'm a newbie to this
I paste the links to the web of each one in case you wanna check out components
I appreciate any advice and I thank you all in advance:)
https://www.cannondale.com/en-us/bikes/mountain/trail-bikes/trail/trail-3
Here's the 99spokes comparison link
https://99spokes.com/en/compare?bikes=trek-marlin-4-gen-3-2026%2Ccannondale-trail-3-2026
by MartinSimpson21
3 Comments
For some reason 99spokes has that the trail 3 is only on 27.5″ but it has 29 too
One thing that jumps out immediately is that the Trek has hydraulic brakes, and the Cannondale has mechanical. That’s a win for the Trek off the bat. I think the Cannondale has a better drivetrain, and it has thru axles.
So, it’s really kind of a “which component do you want to be better” situation? I’d personally go with the brakes, but I’m a heavy rider and I’ve felt what not being able to stop feels like (terrifying). But the Cannondale is better suited for incremental upgrades.
That said, are they really your only options? What about the used market? You can usually find much better deals on used bikes.
don’t ignore the used market, i can find listings of pretty nice used full suspension bikes for like $1000 but make sure you know how to tell if its a scam.
of those 2 options, id probably do the trek because its cheaper, can have 29″ wheels, and has hydraulic brakes.