Getting in to Biking!?

[Delphinus]

Not a lot of info on the Ollie and he's used a stock picture by the looks of it. It's a toned down model from earlier years, at one point it was Devinci's second-in-command after their flagship Wilson for DH bikes and a lot of coin to get into an Ollie. Personally I don't think I'd give it much thought unless you find out he's real close to you and you can check it out in person.

Both the Norco and the Devinci you linked to there are larger travel suspensions (6" or up). They are not going to be fun to push on a commute for very long, unless your commute has a decent DH section (but the flip side is the other direction you're walking it uphill). If you're looking for more of a daily driver that can handle the occasional trail or trick then you should look for bikes in say the 4" of travel instead, for the sake of weight for the most part. Even less if you don't need it since it all adds up to weight. The newer bikes, like from say maybe 2008 onwards you get 5" travel bikes that weigh as much as a 3" travel bike from 2005-2007 but then you're looking at newer and thus probably fewer good deals to be found. You can probably start with a hard tail for now since it will be lighter, and cheaper, for the most part the softtails are really for taking drops (with maybe some exceptions but that's sort of the reason for the rear suspension as far as I'm concerned. ) Also take into account that bikes that aren't rigid will suffer from pedal bob if you can't lock out the suspensions, no pedal bob for the most part with a hard tail.

The best suggestion I have is that you need to try riding a few and see what you like best. Head into a few LBS and try out new models to get an idea for what grabs you but then look for those models used. If you restrict your search to say 2-3 years old the bike shouldn't have had much chance to be trashed. Bike maintenance isn't too bad, you can pick up a guide book from say MEC or similar for $20ish and it will list all sorts of things you can DIY including the crazier low level stuff. That said, I don't do that much except for the simpler stuff myself, I have a pretty good relationship with my LBS (the owner is a friend of mine), they know my bikes well so I usually get them to work them over if it's anything I don't really have the time to tackle myself.