Rode ridged till 2 years ago when moved up to 100mm on the front end. A great move that I wish I had taken sooner. So now thinking about the next step up the ladder.

To keep it simple, lets limit it to two options…1. Stick with HT, but bigger forks, say 140mm. or 2. Keep the same up front but get some movement at the back, say 100mm?

Mostly ride XC and trails (trail center type things). Don’t really have any DH or alps type ambitions.

The main problem I have with the current setup is that at speed it feels like I’m being thrown about at the back, like the trail is in control and not me.

All input welcome

Giant Anthem seems to be a popular choice around that travel if you decide to go for a suspension frame.

As always, try some demo’s… IMO a 120mm HT ‘should’ only improve things & is next on your ladder, without going too hardcore as it should have slightly less XC angles and so should help with your confidence & control.
Also a 100/120mm full susser is also an option to try and see if it improves things for you, I think there great but there not for everyone. 120-130mm is a nice amount of travel for most the UK without getting too gnnnarrr.
Go speak to your local shops to see what they have in demo wise, try and get some different demo’s bikes & see what you think is the next step is for you.
Obviously if you want to go and buy an 140mm One One 456 or Orange 5, that all good too.

Nice one, cheers chaps. Anyone else have anything to add?

Anyone else have anything to add?

http://www.jcwhitney.com/ladder-bars/p2010219.jcwx

140mm for a HT is gnnarrr… but fun too, just watch the head angle. If you put a 140mm fork on a 70 degree head angle HT frame, problems all the way (down hill). Dive & it’ll quite quickly turn to too steep & over you may go IME.

i ride a 456 summer season with 140 pikes it has a slack head angle, which is great for steep techy stuff but also corners unbelievebly, being a steel frame and my build isnt exactly light it isnt the fastest climber out there, however it does everything else perfectly i actually cant imagine a better handling bike-for me anyway.

i am currently building a full susser but only for 2 reasons firstly just for a change now and again and secondly when i ride the peaks etc, the 456 is just a bit heavy on the climbs.

to finish off in my opinion a 130 / 140 ht is about perfect for most situations unless your an out and out racer ,but the extra comfort and traction delivered by a full suspension rig cant be overlooked, also one last point i have found moving to steel takes a lot of that bumpy back end away but there is a definate weight penalty there which in my opinion is worth it but this is just my 10 cents and im sure many will disagree.

I’d look at one of the current crop of 120mm full sus bikes from the likes of Trek, etc. Very capable but still plenty light enough too. Check the tests on here of the Yeti, Mondraker, Orange ST4 and another one I can’t remember right now. May be out of your price range but they’ll give you a good idea of what that type of bike can do.

140mm forks are a waste of time for the type of riding you’re describing and will just make your bike handle worse.

Get a 100-120mm full sus.

We all have different opinions so here are mine.

Ridden MTB for over 20 years and have gone from rigid to hartail to full suspension and back to hardtail.

However ealier this year i sold my HT and FS Cannondales and went down the route of a 100mm travel Orange Elite HT. Rapid and light but scary when the trails got a bit rough downhill.

I looked at 120mm travel FS bikes but felt they were a bit of a compromise so then looked at 140mm bikes.

Took an Orange Five out on a proper demo ride, 3hrs plus and loved it. The weather was bad and i felt it needed setting up better but it still felt an easier bike to ride than my Elite.

I ended up buying a Five and having now set it up properly and think it is great. You have to ride them differently when climbing but keep it smooth and you will find they are just as capable up hill as a HT.

I don’t consider myself overly fit but get around the Monkey Trail at Cannock in under 2 hrs including a good break at the top where the bench is.

Just watch your speed as they are so much quick in the rough stuff and down hills! I have the grazes to prove it!

I went from a hardtail with 80mm upfront to a 127mm FS a few years back. My riding is XC, Local Moors, Lake District, Peaks, a bit of enduro racing etc.

I find that more the limit of what I can do is me, not the bike so I am now thinking of looking at a shorter travel FS, probably 100 mm. The biggest mistake I made when going FS was that I concentrated too much on the travel, rather than the bikes geometry so I think I ended up with a bike that doesnt suit the type of riding I like doing…

IMO FS really makes technical climbing easier but can be frustrating as you need to alter climbing technique and it can feel like it saps your energy.

If starting from scratch just go and try as many FS’s as you can !

imho, suspension is good, but more isn’t necessarily better*.

140mm of travel isn’t an ‘upgrade’ over 100mm, it’s just more.

i suggest option 2: a little bit of bounce at both ends.

something like a giant anthem, or a specialized fsr xc.

(*if anything, i’m increasingly of the opinion that less is more. the top Dh racers go twice as fast as i do, and at least twice as gnarly – so i reckon half their travel would do me fine)

Get an ST4

The main problem I have with the current setup is that at speed it feels like I’m being thrown about at the back, like the trail is in control and not me.

What’s the bike? What size tyres are you running? What sort of terrain are you riding? Hardtails do kick around at speed, dependent a bit on bike set-up, but that’s how they are. It might simply be that you need to tweak the set-up of your current bike slightly and ride a bit looser and more relaxed and look for smoother lines.

Of course, you may just want to buy a new bike, in which case I’d demo as many as possible and get an idea of what feels right to you rather than to me or anyone else on here.

Good comments everyone. A good STW consensus of no right answer. Thought maybe there would have been more advocates of big forked HT’s, but there you go, sort of confirms my own thoughts that they were not the right choice for me/my riding.

BWD, the bike was an old cannondale f800. Had the biggest softest tires I could fit on the back, still couldn’t dent the harshness. Its broken now, hence looking at new options!

Crack’N’Fail ?

TurnerGuy, Yep indeed. Mind you was 10years old, and had been very well used and abused.

Just to add to the mix, its not just suspension that makes for an easier ride. Whilst watching the last decent at this years MM, you could see all manner of bike and suspension travel. A considerable amount of people were moaning how rough the decent was.

However you would be wrong for thinking it was always the people with no suspension or little suspension that were doing the moaning.

Some people on fully rigid bikes were riding faster and more smoothly than some folk on 140/160mm full sussers. They just used their bodies more effectively to absorb the trail. So is that the skills compensator thing or just proof that more doesnt always mean better?

If your bike was with the headshock then they would feel harsh compared to a nice set of Fox forks.

I have had 3 headshock bike but the 2 sets of Fox forks this year have been in another league.

FunkyDunc, can of worms well and truely open then.

Curvature. Not not a headshock, a lefty.

The OnOne Ti456 is suppossed to be very compliant in the rough stuff at speed so prob won’t buck you around so much, if you don’t fancy the hassles of FS.

Before you splash the cash, it may be worth some tweaks to your HT to see if it helps reduce the feeling of being “kicked around”:

1. Larger volume, tyres with good strong sidewalls can be run at a lower pressure. The rubber grips and morphs around rocks rather being deflected off. The rebound of the tyre is slower too, so the feeling of being pinged about you get with higher pressures goes away.

2. Is it possible that rear wheel gets light which makes it skip? A short stem and moving the saddle can move your centre of gravity back a touch so that the rear wheel has a little more weight to keep it down.

Buzz…

…. the bike was an old cannondale f800. Had the biggest softest tires I could fit on the back, still couldn’t dent the harshness. Its broken now, hence looking at new options!