‘If’ it were time to trade my Orange Four in and get a HT for mainly natural XC type riding but not looking for a full on XC steed what would be worth looking at?

The obvious / usual suspects are:

Cotic Soul – bit concerned with the weight.
Whyte 909 – hard on the lower back / wrists?
Stanton Ti Sherpa – I’m 5’7″ so maybe a bit short for a 29er.

I manly ride the South Down, I like climbing and I’m crap at descending (lack of bottle).

The Four seems a bit heavy and over-bike for what I do. I’m riding the SDW end of May on the Four so will wait til after that to reserve judgement on if a move to HT is the right thing.

Soul out of those three I’d say. Whyte probably more descending biased, Stanton too maybe.

Ignoring completely the original question, how about a spark?

Which model Spark are you thinking?

Sherpa 17″ frame should fit pretty well with a nice short stem. Very nice frames – not overly biased DH in my experience.

four – Member
Which model Spark are you thinking

Whichever fits your budget, geometry looks pretty sweet on the new ones.

Best mid-range climbing MTBs I had were Cannondale CAAD3/4s.

2001 F500 fair flew up anything I could throw at it. Coming down a bit sketchier. I blame it on the Tonka yellow.

Then a Kinesis Maxlight. Don’t know about this modern stuff 8)

I’ve got a Stanton Sherpa, made of steel. It’s great both up and downhill. An aluminium or carbon frame would be a pound or two lighter though.

I would imagine a Sherpa would be a lot nicer for doing the SDW than an Orange Four, just because you’re going to spend so much time climbing, which the four isn’t really about, and so little time on super-technical awesome descents (which it is).

I’ve always mainly ridden hardtails. No experience of the Whyte 909, but I wouldn’t fret too much about whether a particular frame will be hard on your back – the main thing that makes a hardtail not hard on you is you having decent core strength. None of the bikes you’ve suggested are going to be conspicuously brutal, but (if you don’t already) it’s well worth investing some time in core strength to keep you comfortable.

The other thing to maybe ask yourself is whether your liking climbing manifests as you surging out of the saddle and devastating your mates with awesome displays of acceleration and sustained power, or whether you’re just perfectly happy doing it. My current bike (Chromag Surface) is somewhat biased towards going down. It is perfectly happy to climb and is a pleasure, but it is not the right bike for climbing heroics, decisive attacks on the hills etc.

I lie your reasoning generally. My limit on descents is bottle, so I’m not going mad fast, which means that the hardtail makes sense. I’m disinclined to ride at the sorts of speeds or to send the sorts of lines that really need big travel, and a decent hardtail allows me to ride fairly slowly without feeling like I’m wasting the bike.

🙂

Titus Fireline in 16″ size with 120mm fork is very capable and lightweight vs your current bike.
I’d put that on your demo list.

I would imagine a Sherpa would be a lot nicer for doing the SDW than an Orange Four

I imagine the opposite would be true. If you’re going to ride 100 miles in a day, you’ll be sitting down most of the time. A full-sus is much nicer for that. The Orange Four is an efficient pedalling and fairly light short-ish travel bike.

However, if the reason you’re crap at descending is that you don’t like riding bikes downhill because the steep/steepness scares you, not that you’re struggling to control the bike, then a hardtail makes sense. But if you’re struggling with the technical element of descending then a hardtail is only going to make things more difficult and worsen your descending more.

A Cotic Soul is a very light steel frame – though you could save about a pound going to Ti or even more with carbon. It’s the same frame weight as my alloy hardtail. Great bike for general MTBing, relaxed confident geometry but not a complete downhill shredder.

Whatever you go for make sure there’s enough clearance for a decent sized rear tyre to allow for a little bit of comfort. Cotic Soul is a great all rounder.

Stanton Ti Sherpa – I’m 5’7″ so maybe a bit short for a 29er.

I’m 5’8, with a 50mm stem if that helps. The Ti version would be lush!

I’m using a Cotic Solaris in chubby mode for South Downs riding. It’s pretty capable, a good mile muncher and good fun in the singletrack. In the same bracket as a Sherpa and I think it would be perfect fr doing the way in a day. (I have done that on a different Hardtail and definitely thought it was the right choice over a full suss)

the main thing that makes a hardtail not hard on you is you having decent core strength.

Interested in the theory being this as yesterday I had my first proper ride on my new hardtail and today I’m feeling pretty sore around the lower back etc.

Why a hardtail?

Why not go for a giant anthem or specialized epic or salsa spearfish etc?

Something that will climb very well, cover large xc miles but also help you on the downhills?

Just a thought.