[Apotheos]

Buy used! You get the upgrade without having to spend as much money.

I do think the upgrade from a new $300 bike to a used (originally) $1200 bike would be very worth it.

I owned a pretty cheat big box bike, an $800 Kona Stuff (probably don't even make that anymore, and a $2700 Santa Cruz Bullet. Every time the upgrsde made a big difference and you could really feel the quality in what you were getting. I will say the upgrade from hardtail $800 bike to dual suspension $2,700 bike was a MASSIVE increase in performance.