I’ve just tried this today for the first time. Any tips on how to stop the forest vibrating like a jack hammer on the fast downhills? I actually couldn’t see the trail. Also will some ergo grips help with the hand numbing? Cheers

Large volume tubeless tyre at low pressure and don’t hold the bars so tight.

2.25 Ron’s at 30psi or under for proper riding works for me, though I don’t run tubeless I use latex tubes.
As singlespeedstu says, make sure you’re not gripping the bars like a fat kid with a chocolate bar Chris, try some esi extra chunky grips.

Yeah 2.4 chunky monkey on the front made it all a lot more pleasant.

Thanks guys looks like I will have to get a bigger front tyre to start with.

29+ in the front makes a huge difference but the more you ride it the more muscular your arms will get 😉

yes, a bigger front tyre and get your weight back a bit helps. ( worth trying a slightly higher bar position). My only bike is a fully rigid 29er and it is great, everywhere, always. I have been known to let it down a bit though…… 😉

What is the frame and forks made of? Generally speaking alloy seems to be the stiffest, steel will give you much more comfort, Ti comes with bling factor and increased comfort and carbon is another one to suck the trail chatter.

I’d also suggest rims as wide as you can get with tyres as wide as you can fit. Drop the pressure a wee bit. Carbon bars and big foamy grips would help as well.

The frame is an ali FF29 recently got off of here with a cheap as chips carbon fork with a 2.2 tyre up front. Niner flat ali bars and thin renthal grips.

Wider rims + 2.4″ tyres at low pressure, around 20psi. You’ll get used to it! Fat front is the way to go though 😉

Crazy line choice,unlearning the death grip,don’t brake and reeeelax.

i tried riding full rigid recently. never ever again unless on my tourer on tarmac.
no fun at all, dont care what anyone says.
sore arse, sore back, sore wrists, blurred vision, pins and needles in hands, tingling fore arms.

no thank you.

Ha ha Ton my vision was so blurred I actually went off into the ferns!

I use a 2.3 at about 30psi on my inbred. I’m 11.5 stone for reference.

Big tyres, soft grips… Everthing else is on the rider though, soft arms etc. Carbon forks and bars might help, might not.

(on my Soda I had esi chunkys, and a 2.5 nevegal singleply run at something daft like 15psi. Did roll the tyre off completely once but then it was stupendously pinched, on a stans olympic)

Weight off front, big tyre, swept bars and improving core strength worked for me.

I run a rigid Air 9c with 2.2 Rons run at 24lbs and the fatter ESI grips. Generally fine,I’ve ridden the widow maker on Dartmoor on it and survived, but its a race set up really. I use suspension for general trail

What is the frame and forks made of? Generally speaking alloy seems to be the stiffest, steel will give you much more comfort, Ti comes with bling factor and increased comfort and carbon is another one to suck the trail chatter.

Argghhh. So much wrong with that I don’t know where to start.

As above a big front tyre will help, On One chunky monkeys are great value and nice to use. It could be worth sourcing some “twangy” carbon bars, that can really take the sting out. I have ESI grips on my rigid but not totally convinced. They do help to an extent but can reduce grip and cause pressure points when you’re doing more dynamic sorts of riding.

To add to tomd.
I’ve owned steel,aluminium (x2) and carbon frames in the last 10 years of riding rigid (8 of those exclusively).
One ali frame was the most comfortable,the other the least,the steel frame was stiffer than the carbon frame and and better at soaking up ‘chatter’.
Maybe Ti is the wonder material….or maybe the design of the frame is more important than what it is made of.
(Also PX bring back the scandal pleaaase)

I’ve just tried this today for the first time. Any tips on how to stop the forest vibrating like a jack hammer on the fast downhills?

There’s a reason suspension was invented. And a reason we all started using it.

You can mitigate it a bit, but really there’s little point, imo. I have a fully rigid 29er, and I have rigid forks as a cost saving exercise. The bike’s fantastic, handles really well, but I can’t really get it up to speed on most trails round here for fear of hitting a rock or root or something and smashing the bike or myself to bits. And forget air unless it’s on a nice smoothly crafted jump.

People seem to say it’s more ‘real’ or ‘simple’ or something. Err yeah ok – as long as it’s not rough where you ride, then fine. And before anyone slags me of as a FS softie I spent the first 9 years of my riding career on fully rigid. I have no nostalgia for this period!

All i have is rigid mtbs. For my 29er ergo grips have really helped with the hand numbing. I actually a 4hr enduro on the bike with hands that opened and closed with the new grips. I use cheap bbb ergo grips and they are good.

I have two wheel sets for the 29er. One is with tubular tyres and i run those at 20psi the other is 2.2″ tubeles s setup with conti tyres which are run at 25psi. Low pressures are must and 30 psi is way too high. Lower pressures improve grip, comfort, controlability of the front end. the front wheel also bounces less which is useful.

Rigid forks means your set up needs to be different to a bike run with a suspension fork. 2.4″ tyres are not a bad option either.

I do wonder if head angles should a be bit slacker for a bit more control.

As for not being able to ride a 29er rigid at speed well that not true. Had a few top ten finishes in mtb races on my 29er. In the thetford winter series 4 hr i have had a 6th in december. Over rough ground the only thing that lk,its your speed is you, its not thw bike. You have to careful about your lkne though. If i was fitter i could do better. Suspension though is an expensive way of spending money. Stick with rigid forks you will get used to them if you give it a chance. It a skill that has to be learnt and you do have to toughen up a bit.

molgrips – Member

People seem to say it’s more ‘real’ or ‘simple’ or something. Err yeah ok – as long as it’s not rough where you ride, then fine.

Not entirely disagreeing… But some of the most fun I had on my rigidised Carrera Kraken was riding it down Gold Run at innerleithen, it is nonsmooth. Terrible idea and I spent quite a lot of the time just totally out of control but I only died a couple of times and it’s not often you get people actually cheering you as you ride past 😆

The point of it for me isn’t being simple or real, it’s just a very different way of riding the same trails, it’s also a bit like having a difficulty slider. I haven’t got a rigid bike just now and I miss it. I never did get round to riding it down fort william (with the 2.7 dualply highroller on and about 2psi, no doubt)

Love rigid riding. Got a Fortitude with Jones fork/hub and a Dually/Chronicle up front, and a SS High Latitude with Kinesis IX forks and a Shorty. Shorty bit small and gets pretty rattly over rooty/rocky stuff but is ace in the bloop. Ride rigid way more often, so suspension takes some getting used to every time I use it – timing is totally different.

when i was asking about various new bikes on various post’s recently 1 thing that someone said jumped out at me. i ride a bike to be in the great outdoors, taking in the great scenery.
to sit on a comfy bike, spinning along doing so is not possible on a rigid unsuspended bike. you cant see much with blurred vision.
comfort over speed/weight saving is the order of the day now…… 😀

thinking of putting some carbon rigids back on my Scandal when I get my 35mm LB rims built up. Yes the trail chatter is hard work but you can end up having a lot of fun as a slightly lower (and safer) pace. The direct feeling and lightness in the front end is very liberating.

Where you ride will have an impact on weather rigid works for you. If you ride rocky trails then suspension maybe be quite useful. I don,t love near rock though. The last race at shouldham warren was on new rough trails i did not have blurred vision neither do i have blurred vison wehn riding my old 26er rigid on local trails which are quite bumpy with narrow 1.7″ tyres (this bike needs the clearance). So lets cut the nonsence. Rigid works for some it does not work for others but sometimes the reason why sometimes dont like it is they dont alter the tyres and pressures used to compensate for the lack of suspension. Round grips dont help either.

Rigid with no wearing parts and with 60mm of shock absorbsion……

http://www.laufforks.com

Having a pair of Trail Racers fitted to my new build this week. I can’t wait to test it out

Read that as “not wearing pants” for some reason….

no wearing parts

No pivots or bushings then?

on one knuckleball chewy bars?

chunky monkey helped for me, but stuck some bouncy forks on before i tried the chewy bars

those forks look worse than the whyte preston things. my eyes hurt from looking at them.

As for not being able to ride a 29er rigid at speed well that not true. Had a few top ten finishes in mtb races on my 29er.

It is true. When I say speed, I don’t mean high average XC speed, I mean fast down something rocky.

Over rough ground the only thing that lk,its your speed is you, its not thw bike.

I’ve ridden a lot of bikes over a lot of trails over a lot of years. I can categorically say that over very rocky trails a 7″ travel FS bike is MUCH faster than a fully rigid bike. No-one with even half a clue would disagree with that. Now, speed might not be important, and that’s absolutely fine. Get your kicks however you want, I’m cool with all of it. However fully rigid is NOT as fast as FS on rocky trails.

it’s also a bit like having a difficulty slider.

I have two difficulty levers on my bike. They are just by my fingers when my hands are on the grips. If I pull them it gets easier, I can make it as difficult as I like by not pulling them 🙂

2.4 chunky monkey at 20psi helps!

You got down. I think you’re doing just fine.

@Rorschach: fully agree – frame’s design is most important when it comes to comfort @tomd: hence “generally speaking” 🙂

@Eddie11 cheers ? I’m going to keep experimenting as I did like the smoother parts of the ride as it was light and very direct.

I suppose it all depends where and how you ride – my favourite bike is my Singular Hummingbird, with 29″ front wheel and rigid forks. A lot of my riding is slowish nadgery stuff(‘cos I’m old and slow but not bad technically) , and often pretty soft and boggy too, so that’s where suspension forks won’t be much (if any) improvement. No brake dive is a bonus too.

Fit the biggest tyres you can.
Ergon grips help.
Wider rims if you can afford it.
Bars with sweep help too (Jones Loop)
but the biggest thing you can do to get used to it is to ride the rigid bike loads, get out on it as much as possible, your body should adjust to cope, it won’t happen quickly though.
Enjoy it.

3″ Tyres…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/pTDQtH]P1050472[/url] by too_tall_paul, on Flickr

😈

Johnclimber,
Looking forward to the review on the Lauf!
Thanks,
Max