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  • Most downhill orientated xc race machine
  • ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    Try something newer, that sort of shit sounds like something i’d have raced 20+ years ago.
    When suspension barely functioned and gears were a bit unreliable in the clag……

    dragon
    Free Member

    For me the best balanced XC bikes I’ve tried are the Trek 29ers e.g. Superfly. Amazingly capable bikes. Like any XC bike they are going to be a bit out of their depth on super steep, rocky stuff, but for anything else they are awesome.

    grey
    Full Member

    What Kimbers said, Kona HeiHei.
    I had a demo of the alloy XC one a couple of months back, very capable bike and quick.
    I would love to try the carbon trail version.

    angeldust
    Free Member

    Yeti ARC with 120mm forks

    OP budget is 2.5K.

    rollindoughnut
    Free Member

    Thanks guys, these are all really useful answers and we’ve hit page two without it turning into a slagging match!

    It’s ridiculous really that I spend hour after hour each week trying to fractionally improve my fitness (I have a coach for this) yet consider a few hours playing on the mtb to be sufficient skills training for all the cornering and descending in a race. Hmmm, food for thought.

    flattyre
    Free Member

    I’ve had quite a few different hardtails of all types and I think my fsi is as good as any of them at descending, at least from a geometry perspective (I also think it’s too stiff for anything other than racing…).

    I really enjoy riding it in a race too whereas normally I don’t notice the bike much.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    To the OP,buke setup might be the key. My skinny Kona had a very well sorted setup, so I felt able to go just as fast as I would have done on a bigger bike. The bigness of the bin bike only helped when it got really rocky and/or steep, which xc courses usually aren’t. With some exceptions obv.

    Only time I didn’t race it I took my 5″ bike to Thetford and set it up with really slow compression and rebound. That meant I could stay seated on those rollers which helped hugely on a 100 km race.

Viewing 7 posts - 41 through 47 (of 47 total)

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