What different type of shifters are available on mountain bikes, and what are the pros/cons of each?
Twist, trigger, and dual control.
There are no advantages. It's all preference. Twist shifters you actually twist the inboard portion of your grip to shift gears. Trigger shifters usually have two levers on each shifter, one to shift up, the other to shift down. Dual control shifters allow you to shift by flicking the brake lever either up or down to shift gears.
If you are asking about who makes them, mainly Shimano or SRAM. Each of them has an entire family of shifters from cheap to ultra high end (race quality). You pick the quality level that suits you. There are no distinct advantages to either brand, other than preference.
My personal preference is dual control shifters/ brake levers because I always have the ability to shift /brake without adjusting my grip on the bars at all.
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My family has just started going mountain biking at various parks and other locations and I realized my old bike is a little small. I need a full sized men's mountain bike with full suspension and (preferrably) disc brakes. I am hoping to spend around $300.00 but if it's worth it, I can spend more.
Any insight about a mountain bike around this price will be very helpful.
Thanks
Also, I found a cool Kawasaki mountain bike, but I don't know if it's any good.
If you only have $300 to spend, stay as far away from full suspension, and disk brakes as possible. A $300 full suspension bike with disk brakes is a heavy, heap of junk that will not perform well on trails. In fact, it will be pretty much unridable on anything other than a nicely graded gravel road.
For a trail worthy ride, you need to go to your local bike shop and check out their hardtail offerings. Most likely, they'll only have a bike with rim brakes at this price point. However, you'll find these bikes will be much lighter, properly assembled, and have serviceable components.
At the bikestore, I suggest you look at brands including: Trek, Specialized, Cannondale, Gary Fisher and Giant. Personally, at this price I'd stay away from Schwinn, Diamondback, Kawasaki, etc.
Hope this helps.
I have heard that there are mountain bikes that are good for all terrains but perform better on smooth surfaces also. Can anyone recommend a bike that is like this and isn’t overly expensive. I was thinking about getting a Columbia trail head Mt bike. Any other suggestions?
It will perform well on flat surfaces especially if you can lock out the suspension. It won’t be as good as a road bike on the road of course but if you are going to ride on the road to get to trails like me it’ll be fine.
Any links/well written explanations would be very appreciated, Thanks
Um, your question is a little ambiguous…
By testing, do you mean testing to see if it works, or testing to see if it will hold up under riding conditions?
If you just want to see of a design works, draw each piece exactly full size on paper (don't forget your hole centers, etc), glue the paper to some corrugated cardboard, cut it out and assemble with some small nuts and bolts.. This is the "old school" way of doing it. I design a suspension frame using 3D modelling software but still do the "cardboard" stage because I am just an old man set in my ways.
If you want to know if it will actually be rideable, it is a combination between design experience and prototyping. This means actually building a frame and riding it. If it works, the decision has to be made whether the design is a repeat of something already made, or if it is different enough to pay the considerable cost of tooling to produce it, or whether it should be relegated to the back room or dumpster.