You can ride anything on anybike really.. just depends how fast you want to go. just choose the bike you like and don't bitch about other peoples choices. A lot of these discussions are just people justifying their expensive purchases to themselves.

i remember that old Cove advert,

"you dont take a toothpick to a knife fight" or something like that.

well you do, if you are gonna watch and cheer
or you take a semi auto if you really have to kill everything, laughing.

ride what you want

Indeed

Lots and lots of Interesting points …. Thanks 😀

I suppose from one point of view these questions come from the fact I don't get the long travel on a hard tail for "Mountain biking" thing… I get the north sure and aggressive trail riding … And it's my ignorance or lack of understanding that I'm questioning really… maybe I'm just looking for some education against my stuck ways? You sit thinking you know a lot for along while and then you make the big mistake of actually believing it… 😳

I do tend to believe there is a relationship between most styles of bike and use… but when I can't see a link… I ask questions so I can understand.

Maybe I should just get one and try it for a while… then again I could just stick a pair of 130mm forks on the frame I've got put a 50mm h/bar stem on … and bang there you go….well almost! My centre of gravity would be a bit back…due to a suspect seat angle, height of bars,shortness of stem and extended front wheel base… The worst that could happen is me shifting my wait forward to gain control over the front end… a bit of understeer as they say! and a bit straight line ish maybe??

Hopefully not posting back from A n E

Zone 😀

Zone – i think you asked a very good question.

it seems that for 'just riding around' you can choose either fully rigid, or a 130mm hardtail. there doesn't seem to be much inbetween.

does anyone make a slack angled hardtail frame designed for 80-100mm forks?

the summer-season comes close i suppose… but are there others?

(mainly based on my tight-ar5edness – RS tora forks are looking cheap these days if you're happy with 100mm, it seems i need to spend at lest £800 on frame and forks if i want a head angle less than 69degrees)

Well I've got 2 "long forked hardtails" A Cotic Soda with 130mm forks on which is my XC bike, and feels pretty well balanced for nigh on anything, plus a freshly acquired Cotic BFe with 160mm Lyrics.

I'm just back from a fortnight in the Alps with the nice people at Trail Addiction. I took both my Turner RFX and the BFe. I started off riding the BFe and just never ever felt the need to swap to the Turner. The stability, precision and chuckability of a slack, short hardtail with big forks, big brakes and big tyres was pretty amazing on tight technical trails. Sure there were a few bits where I had to grit my teeth and hang on, but overall it slowed me down very little compared to the other guys in the group. The guides (on 6/7" FS bikes) could leave me on the fast stuff (30mph+), but it was evens every where else.

It's not a great climbing bike (although its surprisingly OK), partly down to no granny ring, partly down to riding a frame a size down from normal, with a 50mm stem, a 6lb fork and 2.5 tyres with DH tubes. U-turn forks go a long way to making things easier though.

Interestingly, one of the other TA guests trashed their Stumpjumper and then borrowed a Dialled Alpine from Ali. He absolutely hated it for half and hour or so, then it clicked and he was clearing sections of trail that he said he wouldn't have even attempted on his own full sus bike.

One of the guides likened big forked hardtails to shagging a fat bird "So very, very wrong, but feels so very, very right"

ahwhiles, Charge bikes' Nick Larsen is very anti- the whole 130mm fork thing, and the Blender and Duster are both designed around 100mm forks.

Personally I reckon this point of view falls flat when you consider that most DH races are won on bikes with 170-200mm travel front and rear. Even on a 130mm travel full susser the effects of braking and weight shifting are potentially going to more pronounced than on a 130mm hardtail.

I ride a Cotic Soul with a Magura Menja 130 fork. Mostly set up as singlespeed.

It all feels fine to me, and given that the 80mm and 100mm Menjas are the same fork, so when bottomed out the geometry is all the same, I can't see the disadvantage.

I never get nose lift when climbing, as I'm either standing up if singlespeeding or walking up anyway with gears. And anyway, I like an excuse to get off up hills.

The advantage it gives me over 100mm (which I used to have) is that the front used to feel a bit "tippy" when crossing ditches etc. and now it feels less so.

the Orange 5 is often held up as a good example of a 'trail' bike.

(i'm not really sure what that means either)

quoted head angle – 67degrees, which seems to be about average for a that kind of bike.

the charge duster has a quoted head angle of 71 degrees.

i don't understand why hardtail frames have such steep head angles…?

It's an XC race frame. If you want a slack head angle, a Blender is 68 degrees and I think the Summer Season is similarly slack (although didn't everyone end up running theirs with long forks regardless?)

i used to think like the op but changed my mind over the last year or so. i used to ride a ht with 65mm then went up to 80mm and got an 80mm travel anthem and they were great but after trying lots of bikes when i wanted to replace the anthem i went with a 5 spot and after riding the for a while got rid of the cannondale ht and got an inbred 456 with talas on.

sure they both weigh more than the bikes theyve replaced but they are so much more fun to ride. and the turner climbs better than the anthem too even tho it weighs more 😉

i don't understand why hardtail frames have such steep head angles…?

'cause with a steeper head angle and a lower BB height you can tip it into bends and race up hills miles easier, makes for a much more nippy and agile bike.

start to slacken the angles and up the bb height and the bike doesn't handle as sharp and becomes more of a comfortable cruiser.

Kev

I had a 100mm hardtail as my second bike, and I've just upgraded it to a Marin Rocky ridge. What a blast. It's tons more fun. That bike just wants to launch off every single lip it sees. I'd never want to go back to a 100mm, unless I spent all my time on canal paths and the like. The more relaxed geometry makes me a lot more inclined to try some of the super steep trails around where I live. I would have definitely shied away from them on my old hardtail, which was more suited to pootling along (although I agree that, in theory, you oculd ride anything on a 100mm hardtail, I would never have enjoyed it so much, and woudl have been off over the bars several times a night).

So I'm afraid I couldn't disagree more with the original post.

Excuse my crude attempt at " the world as everyone should see it" list 😳

busy….but?

Full rigid = old school 😀
80mm = out and out race 😀 up to noncy dusty trail leisure rider 🙁
100mm = Cross country race and "Mountain biking" full suss cross country.. 😀
120mm = Aggressive trail,north shore, freeride (closeish), full suspension all dayer 😀
130mm = Agressive Trail, north sure, freeride (close one), full suspension freeride 😀
150mmm = Downhill trailsters FS or down hill fs 😀
170mm = Downhill, gravity drop,brain out,crazy stuff 😳 not my bag!

A bit of a vauge list so don't pay to much attention to detail… but you get my drift… Hopefully.
Droppin a hardtail in at 130mm or 150mm grates against my understanding of how bikes ride.. even a full suss at this level but with cross country geometry just does not compute 😯 so on the hardtail while the front end is soaking the size hits on big stuff being ridden ..what is the back end doing? or if it's cross country trail riding… why do you need 130mm…. Can someone draw me a diagram 😳

Maybe some things in life your just never meant to be got? 🙁

Please feel free to make your own list??? 😀

Sorry, but that last post reads like you've been locked in a cellar for a month with nothing except a flickering candle and some back issues of MBR.

Although I'll have to try blithely dropping the phrase "soaking the size hits on big stuff being ridden" into a conversation at some point. 🙂

[chuckles at Mr_A]

I rode short travel and rigid bikes for years and years. It was all good. I currently have a Pace 305 with a U-turn Pike (95-140mm) on it. I am vastly faster and have been able to master trails and lines that I simply avoided or minced before.

Generally I'll run the Pike at around 120mm so that, psychologically, I've got something in reserve for uber-sick and mega-rad sections where it is imperative that the gnarl be dialled out and the stoke be on.

YOur legs deal with the back. THey have lots of suspensions.

😆 sorry typing fast… multi taskin a bit too 😉

But MBR??????

ouch! 😥

Ah so it's my legs,head and typing that are the problem not the style of bike… 😯
😀

YOur legs deal with the back. THey have lots of suspensions

I need to let a bit of air out of my legs then and speed up the rebound in my knees 😆

Seriously though, I run 120mm travel on the front, and that can soak up more bumps than my legs can for the rear. I say that because when I hit real rocky trails fast, my feet can get a little air time off the peddals, regardless of how relaxed my legs are and it becomes and little scary. Probably just me though.

Stop trying to put everything in a box & just ride the bloody thing.

people buy in boxes real or perceived… they live in boxes real or perceived…

but which one shall I ride… which one will give the most fun and enjoyment for my hard earned cash…which will suit my riding abilities and and aspirations…

A life without choice feeds the lazy and restricts the explorer…

zone

Then choose a box. Personally, I have 5 different boxes to choose from.

maybe that's the answer, one more box not no boxes.. 😀

The answer is always "one more box":

Yep! even when your cremated 🙁

Lift Assisted Single Track: that's another box for you to put something in.

I think Mr Zone, you are giving too much thought to this. 10mm isn't a big deal and unless your a 'princess and the pea' type of rider, you'd struggle to notice the difference it makes to the whole setup of the bike. Your arms and legs have bends near the middle and should cope with any adjustments your body need to make to keep things rosey.

I carefully lived my mountain biking career backwards, started off on 4-inch full sus, graduated to a long-travel hardtail, then a shorter travel one, then I went fully rigid and finally transferred to the road.

That's a bit of a contrast to the OP, who seems to be going the other way but got stuck at stage two, but what I would say is that my way appears to have left my brain mostly undamaged, whereas riding short travel hardtails extensively has clearly scrambled yours in a quite unfortunate way, what with all these boxes you're on about.

Right now, I think your best bet is to forget about extended travel and, instead, go and see a qualified mental health professional to see if the damage is in some way reversible. I suspect he or she may suggest more travel as a longer term solution, but in the short term, maybe you just need to get out more?

Wasn't there a study a couple of years back that suggested short travel bikes, eventualy, produce a milder version of the punch drunk syndrome that affects some boxers?

I think and have thought about these sort of bike things a lot…. I have too! 😀

Nothing wrong with a bit of theory revaluation with riders that are committed ( no pun intended) to riding.

I've gone up and down.. rigid to down hill( not dh now of course) back down to 80mm hardtail on my main bike… I nearly went for some carbon rigid forks.. 😯 And as for road bikes… I'm not that nuts…. 😆

Odd thing is that this type of set up wasn't there the last time I went up the travel size ladder, or down for that matter… so feedback to my questions are very helpful and appreciated! 😀

I suppose I'm excited about how a style of bike has emerged off the trails in this modern age of big brands and big technology and managed to carve an innovative route for its self… It's fantastic. It doesn't have to be my thing to want to understand it. it's been extremely interesting, thanks.. genuinely 😀

Where will it go from here… any ideas… evolution is so thought provoking.

But yep slightley bonkers.. full shilling…? no thanks! I could never be as perfect as some on here 😆

I'm glad this has been informative for you. Now go out and hit the size soaks on ridden big stuff. 🙂

On a side note.

Please could we introduce some sort of rationing system to stop this appalling waste of emoticons? ❓ 😀 🙄

unless your a 'princess and the pea' type of rider,

New niche?