i’ll be honest: i do have a strong preference for ‘bikes’ with engines. but when we moved to germany racing or even riding dirt bikes became too difficult, while at the same time there was easy access to some excellent mountain bike trails. so getting a mountain bike was the logical thing to do.
you can spend an unbelievable amount of money on mountain bikes. these things can literally cost as much as a motorbike, but since this was going to be my first mountain bike i wanted something for a more realistic price.
i did a lot of reseach reading magazines and checking the internet. the giant vt seemed like a good compromise: long travel suspension (for the time), relatively low weight, at a reasonable cost.
reasonable cost means compromise on components: the cranks were heavy and soft, the derailleurs and triggers cheap, the rims too light and soft. the main deficiency, however, may have been the fork, which was in no way able to keep up with the much stiffer rear suspension.
my first modification was a larger (8 inch) rotor for the front brake, later i bought a rock shox pike (which came with a new wheelset) and then i replaced the rear derailleur and the triggers with sram x0 components.
it was a good bike for the price, and taught me a lot about what to look for and what to expect in a mountain bike. krisz also got a giant vt, which was later stolen together with my proceed.
when i got the proceed fst most of these components went onto that bike, and the vt got its original stuff back. the bike still exists: krisz’ dad got it now.