Production privee do sexy 29ers. Stanton Sherpa and Onza Payoffs are not quite as ‘aggro’ as they’re designed for 120-130mm travel I believe but both well thought of (I like my Payoff, although it has a 27.2 seatpost).

Vendetta 29? https://kingdombike.com/collections/hardtails/products/vendetta-plus-29

Niner ROS 9
2 Souls Cycles QH

Genesis Tarn 29
Zealous Division
Kona Honzo has to get a mention for being one of the first of this ilk.

I’ve got/had all of the above – all fun bikes!

£600 Tarn is with a carbon fork. Appreciate you may not want it though. Complete bike is nice.

Reach on medium Honzo, medium Tarn and Lrg Zealous are all in the same ballpark.

btr ranger – reach can be customized if not already long enough

Genesis will ride super nice I’m sure from what others have I’ve ridden

I wouldn’t get hung up on tubing. It’s their customers mojito or whatever its called. Honzo is also cheaper tubing isn’t it? Ie not Reynolds 853 etc

Remember you have to take into account sag when considering reach- it makes a surprisingly big difference, I’d kind of discounted it myself til I saw the actual numbers.

Scout is as stiff as a stiff thing which imo is a huge drawback in a hardcore hardtail, just constantly costs you grip and control… But other folks like that.

Interesting reading btr’s opinion on hardtais. Ranger being 100mm on the 29er. I’d agree a hardtail doesn’t necessarily need massive travel to be “hardcore”

I had reservations about 120mm travel on the 26″ frames being enough but I couldn’t have been wronger – the frames are a bit spendy but well worth the money

@coomber – Thanks for the link, it’s a good read but it feels a bit ‘sponsored content’ to me – great photos, well written, not much else on the site (probably a really unfair comment so happy to be corrected!). Will see if I can get a proper go on one.

Edit: just read the ‘about us’ page and yep, sponsored content.

You lakes based? Can cock a leg over my payoff if you’re handy for conistonish

Buzzard was way ahead of the curve, don’t think people really got it at the time, Sam should have sold lots of them, and would have if he launched in the last 18 months I think.

Friend of mine has the the ros 9, it’s a lovely bike.

Interestingly (to me at least, i was looking at one at the time) if you build them up with the same (29, not plus) forks and wheels it has pretty similar geometry to the trek stache, so perhaps that as a left field option with different build options?

I have s Vitus Sentier 29 as my hardtail and love it, light and capable and strangely comfy for an Aly hardtaul.

Came after the Honzo, Canfield bikes etc. Certainly not the first LT 29er hardtail.

I’ve got a Kona Honzo with 140 forks and a -2 angleset, it is weighty at 32.5 lbs fully built but I love it. Once you get it going nothing stops it.

Surely steel hardcore hardtails are always going to be bulky things.

If you want lighter then the kona taro is almost exactly the same geometry as the Honzo but made from aluminium.

Always wanted a Transition transam but they’d feel short and steep now. Only thing that would tempt me away from the Honzo right now would be the Last Fast Forward or Swarf, the BTR is just too expensive.

@kimbers – I’ve just seen that on the Kona site they say you can buy an alu frame only… Now if only they’d respond to me when I tell them I want to give them some money…

Sorry yeah they rebranded the Toro as an Alu Honzo.

Also interested in this although I’d happily go with alu this time.
Not much choice there either as all the best frames seem to be 27.5 (Crush, Bird Zero etc).

@jruk – sponsored content. How disappointing. Sorry I didn’t notice that. MBR gave it 4/5 this month or last though.