Hi all, looking for some perspective here. I am very much a mtb beginner, though I have past experience with similar things and feel I am generally inclined to such activities. I really wanted to get out on the trails this fall, so I recently purchased a Nashbar AT2. I only had about $300 to spare and this bike (at $239 delivered w/discount) allowed me to make some small upgrades (OS bars, stem, grips, pedals all in transit) to give me a fairly noticeable bump over the box store offerings without really going over budget. Over $350 meant no bike this year. All of the AT2 reviews I could find confirmed this and after a weekend riding it hard with all the stock components, I am very happy with the purchase. For the record, I spent about a month obsessively lurking Craigslist for a used name brand, to no avail. I know it may be sacrilege here, but the AT2 is what I have.

As it turns out, I really underestimated my comfort level on the trails. I live very close to a fantastic bike park and spent the weekend riding some blue square flow trails that just blew my mind. I realize that this isn’t the ideal bike for this, but with the upgrades coming this week, I think I can get away with it.

Current problem is that the fork is a Suntour XCT 80mm. From my research, because this fork doesn’t have rebound damping (and because it’s regarded as a pile of shit), not only is it not ideal for this style of riding, but it’s actually dangerous. So I’m looking for an affordable fork upgrade, but don’t know where to start. I’m assuming that going used is the way to go, but not sure. I’ve also read that this fork qualifies for Suntour’s upgrade program. Or should I just stop riding this stuff until I can afford a real person bike? Any suggestions on what I should do? Help!