Any Commencal Meta hardtail riders in here? Looking at top tube length the large looks the best bet, although at 5’9″ I normally go for a ‘medium’ 17-18 inch frame but the top tube on the medium is too short, especially wanting to run a 60mm stem. The large Meta HT is 19 inch, so concerned about standover. Any opinion from similar size riders welcome. Doing a mix of XC and technical trail riding, so looking at the 2015 Trail model with 120mm fork.

Looking at other more expensive 650b “hardcore hardtails” (as you do) I read the medium Orange Crush is also a little short in cockpit length, while the medium size Whyte 905 looks perfect but over budget. New boy so flame away!

Bump for any Commencal hardtail riders, or anyone who wants to chime in on sizing up with this type of hardcore hardtail.

Caveat – I don’t know how much they’ve changed the geometry of the hardtails since last year. We’ve not got any 2015 bikes in yet. I can’t imagine they have changed the hardtail geometry massively. Also I am assuming you’re looking at a 2015 one not a 2014 one – if not then the caveat doesn’t apply!

In our experience the Commencal bikes are quite long and I would certainly not expect someone your height to need a large, especially with wide bars as I would imagine you’d run. I’d be surprised if a medium didn’t fit you well.

Obviously best to demo one if you can though.

Just out of interest Drover, will you be getting the 2015 HT in?

What about the frame only option, will you be supplying?

Surprised you think they’re long drover. 585mm horizontal top tube for the Medium and 610mm for the large.
The Orange Crush, Saracen Zen and Bird Zero are all 605mm for a medium. And Whyte a whopping 618mm.

My current bike is a bit too small and having to run a 100mm stem, although my bars are not very wide so maybe thats contributing to the cramped feeling.

Anyway, if you think a Large would be too big I will look at a different make.

@simon – yes, fair point. Looking at the numbers it does seem that way. Not sure as I said if they’ve changed the geo since last year. Interestingly the full-sus bikes are longer, and the V4 slightly shorter than the V3 (though still longer than the HTs).

@scandal we’re undecided whether to hold stock of any Commencal bikes for next year. Basically they are pushing direct sales, but will supply dealers at a significantly reduced margin. So it makes more sense for us to sell other bikes if we want to make a living, but we like Commencal and feel they make good bikes, so are a bit torn…

We can absolutely supply them however, and certainly will be supplying the frame-only on both HT and FS. One area we do see good potential is custom builds as most of the stock bikes come with SRAM (and pretty poor wheels) and we can see a demand for Shimano builds with e.g. Mavic or Hope Hoops.

Admittedly I’m possibly not the target audience with the custom build side of things, however I was liking the look of the new AM HT and would possibly look to pick a frame up with headset etc, seems like a good excuse to get a trip down to the valley for a ride and bike viewing 🙂

Direct purchasing from a shopless bike manufacturer isn’t my cup of tea.

Sounds good! I think the frames are available in about a month. We’re more than happy to supply frame-only or frame plus a few bits like a headset.

I’ve been looking at these too. But by the looks of the geometry charts. The 2015 frame is shorter than the 2014 which is quite annoying. 605 – 615 ETT respectively for the Large frame.

I’m just shy of 6 foot but that length is making me look at the XL which seems a bit odd for someone not even 6 foot.

Hmmm – sounds like we should get a couple of demo bikes built up!

Tend towards shorter TTs is probably countered by tend towards wider bars. What bar width are you running now/would you run on the Commencal?

Not sure on exactly how wide bars on next bike will be, currently only 700mm so will be a bit wider, but I like to thread through some tight trees sometimes. And I’d like to start with a 60mm stem with the option to go 10mm shorter or longer depending on how I get on with it.

My current bike (Rockrider 9.2 full susser in Medium) only has a 575mm horizontal top tube, came with a 90mm stem and felt cramped enough to swap to a 100mm. This isn’t great on technical descents. Running seat post at max height as well, another indicator its too small. In hindsight I should have got a large and stuck a shorter stem on it.

So very wary of buying another bike thats too small. Assuming standover is OK – and its a nice sloping tube which helps – on the Meta I’m tempted to gamble it will be a good fit, certainly with a 50 or 60mm stem. As another comparison the Large Meta top tube length is the same as Boardman hardtails in Medium, and they felt perfect when I sat on one. Surely it won’t feel like riding a gate just due to 19 inch seatpost?

If chrisdw is under 6 foot and split between a L and XL then maybe I’m not mad after all.

Yep, sounds like Large with a short stem might well be your best bet.

Don’t know where you plan to buy from but if you’ve got a dealer locally surely they’d look after you? We’d not be bothered – on a relatively inexpensive frame – if we sold you a large and you wanted to swap it to a medium if it turned out to be too big (obviously the decision to swap would have to be made before riding/trashing it and you’d have to be careful building it up not to mark the frame etc).

Thinking about buying a complete bike direct in the Trail spec, unless I can find someone who will supply in this country for a piddling £710 (Euro price is €899). 2×10 gears with 120mm Raidon air fork, and about 12.5kg in weight. Seems a good budget hardcore hardtail for the money.

@simon – the website prices are pretty cheap, to be fair, yes. I can’t see that anyone in the UK will match that or even get close. UK RRP is £829 and the margin dealers are being offered on that is about half what we’d normally expect on a mainstream bike. Such that even offering 5% off would be silly really.

Where are you at?

I’ve got a large 2014 HT SX and that the shop persuaded me would fit better than a medium. I’m 5’10.

It feels great fro all day stuff but I like em super small though and I wish I’d gone medium. If you’re getting a 2014 26’er and fancy a large let me know and I’ll chip in and swap frames…!