So as mantain my stupid questions thread for STW.
I have tried 3 times to get up a longish very, very steep sheep field with bumps and holes with both my HT and FS bikes.Which bike would be best do you think?

FS – you’ll have better traction.

Depends on the bikes. FS in theory but if it’s a ‘big’ bike you’ll be sat more upright and your weight will be further back which won’t help, and your BB might be slightly higher which would again not help if it’s steep.

short travel fs.

depends.

what’s the problem?

do you…

a) fall off the back?
b) get tired?
c) lose traction on the bumps and stall?

or a combination of all of the above?

is it climb you think you can do seated? – or are there bits where you need to stand so you can put down a bit more power?

we i need more information for my spreadsheet…

The lightest, easier to pick it up and run with it 😉

Dunno, my HT is SS so climbing is entirely different to the pitch.

Pitch – unstopable, just put it in the granny and winch through big steps like they’re not even there. But it gets stumped by steep gradients.

SS – will get up near enough anything, as long as I don’t black out first or there’s any big steps at the end of the climb.

I’d say a short travel sull sus will probably climb fastest and furthest, something like a giant anthem x?

But it gets I get stumped by steep gradients

FTFY 🙂

Move your body around.

Short travel, light FS.

Short travel FS with a steep HA and decent set up and rider will get up nearly anything I reckon.

But any hardtail should be better then any other FS.

Get off & push. 🙂

Cross bike

molgrips – Member

FTFY

🙂

Move your body around.

Tried that, there’s a hill in the Chilterns* which try as I might it wont go up, theres plenty of grip, its lumpy but not technical, but you just eventualy run out of momentum and grind to a halt.

*Thames path from Pangbourne, where the up/down steps used to be just as you come off the driveway/road, I swear the lack of steps now makes it harder (and will cause it to be washwed away in winter).