I am thinking about taking 1 degree off my Cove Stiffee taking it down to 65 degrees.

I was wondering if anyone had already done this to a stiffee?

also I was just wondering how slack people have gone with these and if it made a big difference.

I’ve put two on different frames. Most extreme was an Mmmbop, which I measure at 63*, unsagged. It became better in every way: an amazing technical climber and a monster downhill.

64 degrees on my grapil. Combined with a 35mm stem, it’s superb pointing down, and surprisingly good going up.

66 degrees on my trance, works well.

I slackened my old mojo hd out by 1.5 deg, it made it more confident downhill, but not as good on flat corners, you really had to make sure your weight was over the front other wise the front wheel would wash out.

I’d be wary of changing the angle too much in future

Wish I hadn’t clicked on this thread. Keep having this thought about slacking my Rocket off by a degree or two just as a ‘what if…’.

I went from a hardtail which was the stock 66.8 static HA to a new one which was tweaked to 64.3 HA (-2 deg and 130mm fork) and then to 64.9 deg (-0.5 deg and 150mm fork). I think you’ll like the change. I went less slack to rein in the front centre length and raise the BB, not because the steering felt too slack.

1.5deg on a 2011 or 2012 Zesty.

No downsides at all, it was fab.

65 on my 29ers, not that I buy headsets that often but I doubt I’ll ever buy a straight one again

Thanks for the response. Once they are back in stock I am getting one.

Fitted and test ridden a 2 deg headset on my tallboy lt today. It makes hell of a difference decending, a lot less twitchy and doesn’t seem to get ‘hung up’ on rocks as it did before. The steering is a bit lazier but that’s a compromise I’m willing to take. Ascending is fine, apart from my cardio ability.

I’d be curious to know if anyone has done it to a Trek Stache, they’ve got quite steep head angle, for a modern bike!

Stiffee isn’t that slack as standard is it? 68 with a 130mm fork according to Cove and I think that’s unsagged.

TBH every time I’ve done it, I’ve gone as slack as possible and never felt it’s too much. My C456 and my Hemlock both climbed less well but then, they weren’t good climbers anyway so it didn’t feel like a big loss.

As slack as your frame allows.
I’ve done a few frames, and never thought about changing back.

I took 1.5 degrees off my XTC Advanced 29’er hard tail, from frightening 71.5 to useable 70.0

Slacker HA, lower BBH, longer front centre,longer wheelbase.

Huge improvement in handling and safety

Best £60 I’ve spent in years. Works components.

1.5 degrees on my Mega 275 – 1.00 angleset +170mm forks .5 degree. Feels superb now both down and up!

Northwind went proper slack

Anyone measured the effect an angleset has on top tube length (and therefore reach)? Thinking about getting one of the -2 Superstar setups but concerned it might make things a bit short

Will reduce the stack slightly and actually make the reach longer.No more than 3-5mm.
Plug some numbers into one of the geometry calculator dohickies.

There’s a load of factors that go into it especially depending on whether you need an external bottom cup replacing an internal one… but they all add up to bugger-all difference for reach. Some headsets move the top bearing backwards a little, and obviously slackening the steerer pushes the bars backwards (without actually affecting reach but affecting what I guess you could call effective reach), but if the cups are the same then the front end also lowers slightly and that adds a little reach (the front end may actually rise depending on the parts.

I went from a zero stack bottom cup to a +10 so I reckon I’ll be down a couple of mm of reach. Not an amount I can feel, though.

With EC above ZS below anglesets you gain a bit of reach, whilst with ZS/EC above EC below the changes that affect reach tend to cancel out. Even with external lower cups it’s less than the change you get from different fork lengths.

I think going for max slackness is a good bet on many older frames but probably not on more modern 27.5 bikes (as they tended to be launched with slacker head angles than the 26 bikes that preceded them). All but the most recent 29 models have had much less trail due to being steeper and having more offset than 27.5 bikes and not enough wheel radius to make up the difference. And lots of 26 bikes weren’t that slack.

If I slack out my Spitfire to the max that’ll take it to 63.6 deg HA – possibly too extreme for a 140mm bike? I was going to try it but got distracted making hardtails as slack as it!

Fitted and test ridden a 2 deg headset on my tallboy lt today.

Now get a 160 fork and some reducer bushes fitted to the shock to finish the job. 🙂

Thinking of slackening a canyon carbon hardtail frame from 70 deg to 68.5 deg. That’d be OK wouldn’t it? Any down sides to the process? I’ve heard the headsets creak like a very creaky thing? Is that true or internet bollocks?

Its just the cane creek ones that….creak.

Several Works Components headsets fitted to different bikes never had a creaking problem.

Aye, the Cane Creek has extra moving parts so is more inclined to creak and can be fiddlier to adjust, Works ones (and various knockoffs like Superstar) work just like any other headset cups.

(the only benefit of the CC Angleset is more universal fitment, whereas the simpler ones like Works are specific to a smaller range of head tube lengths. But in practice, how often will you swap them from bike to bike? It’s quite clever engineering but it adds complexity and cost that we don’t often need)

Also, cheers Dirtyrider, I’m sure that’s giving people more confidence in my spannering advice here 😆

Singlespeedstu, I have a 160 pike up front already, what is this shock reducer bush you mention?

http://www.tftuned.com/offset-mount-kits/c71

I’m a bit stumped as to how they’d be useful? It’s probably slack enough already with the fork/headset, around 66.8•, or do they do something different? Is the VPP affected?

The shock bushings make the bike behave like it’s sitting deeper in the travel, hence slacker head and seat angles, lower BB and shorter reach. On a Santa Cruz VPP it won’t noticeably affect the suspension behaviour as all the curves describing the kinematics are pretty flat around the sag area.

Also, cheers Dirtyrider, I’m sure that’s giving people more confidence in my spannering advice here

There are some pictures that will live forever, Northwind’s forks and CFH’s special shoes are right up there 🙂

Cheers CGG, I’ll give the current set up a few rides and see how I get on, the bb being raised was of some concern so I’ll keep the bushes in mind.

Thanks for the input. I just ordered a works one from Freeborn but they are a 4-6 week lead time. Sad times.

your are probably right about the cove head angle I got the number from review I found on bikemagic.

I have a 2° one on my Saracen Ariel 162, it handles just fine on single track and even better on gnarly stuff.

makes it more stable in the air.

Reach hasn’t been badly affected as I have a 60mm stem on there, indeed it feels better to be behind the bars than over them.

you do know that you can just order straight from Works? I’d be having a look on their site to see if it’d be faster going direct

Recently dealt with Works to play around with angles. Fine bunch of gents that know their stuff in my experience.

Just had a look into this myself if you’re interested:

http://www.spanner.org.uk/2016/10/review-works-components-angleset-heres-project-chopper/

you do know that you can just order straight from Works? I’d be having a look on their site to see if it’d be faster going direct

From what freeborn told me it would not be any quicker as he is just one guy with a huge product catalogue. seems easier to me to let them do the leg work and maybe he might be quicker fulfilling a specific order than waiting for him to restock.

Both times I’ve dealt with Works it’s been a woman I’ve been chatting with, doesn’t seem like a 1 man thing. Wouldn’t you want to check they don’t have it listed as available anyway? Freeborn have been ‘interesting’ with availability in the past (the opposite though, saying they have something available when they don’t)

You could always look to see if Superstar have got your size in stock.