Sooooo,
Its taken 3 and a half years, but my journey with the Quarterhorse has come to an end.
It was certainly better with the slackset installed, but it still felt like it needed a bit more fork in front. Ultimately I felt that the cockpit was a bit too short for me with a shorter stem, but a longer stem to make it fit better affected the steering adversely.
It’s easy to think from my comments that its not a very good bike, but that wouldn’t be the case, its a cracking bike that has taken my riding from ‘I’m not taking a hardtail down there’ to riding all the same lines as the FS, and shifting my riding defaults from grabbing the FS without thinking, to grabbing the HT without thinking.
But as my riding has evolved, I have ended up looking for something that the Quarterhorse isn’t.
I couldn’t make it what I wanted it to be, notably because I wanted a longer front centre within the frame so that I wouldn’t have to compromise on steering. Once I’d installed the slackset, it took a couple of months for me to draw the conclusion that the length in the cockpit just wasn’t where I wanted it.
and so, I’ve moved from this:
to this:
I can’t deny that curiosity in what is currently the most extreme Nu-skool 29er geometry I can find isn’t a factor in my decision. If anyone’s interested in how I get on, I might post up some first impressions, but I think it’ll be on a new thread.