I used to have a 2005 Five, it was a fantastic bike and I loved riding it, but it was too much really for Surrey Hills where I do most of my riding, although I do Wales and Lakes too, and would like to go back to Spain at some point, so it’s good to have something more than an XC bike.

Looking to replace my Soul with a fun full suss (rather than one which just steamrollers through everything).

On the shortlist so far is a new Five, poss the Santa Cruz Bantam and maybe Whyte T-130.

Any recommendations/ideas?

Cheers

Love my Banshee Spitfire – it’s replaced the Soul for ~8 months of the year on local rides and it does all the away trips. Bloody brilliant! I even wrote a review:

A year on a Spitfire

We’ve progressed a bit since then – I switched it into the high/steep setting for some months and that helped transfer my skills from the shorter/taller Soul (which I’d been back on over winter) on the local singletrack. Then after a Jedi session I’ve been working tons on my cornering technique and I firmed up the fork to 20% from 25% sag and then last weekend dropped it to low/slack with a bit more air in the shock (25% sag from 28%). With tidier foot technique the lower BB is working out fine and the slackness lets me get right up on the front in turns, really chuck it into corners and drift the back end where necessary or when there’s less grip than I was expecting. It feels very firm and taut as you pump/pedal/jump, never wallowy or soft – super responsive.

Different front tyre on there now too – Maxxis Minion DHR2 3C Exo 2.3. It’s as good as its name is long, despite the irony of a so-called ‘DownHill Rear’ making such a great front tyre on a 160/140mm bike! 😉

Cube Stereo 140 TM. Biased of course but better than a T130 when I tested them.

They are all a fair bit slacker than your 2005 Five. So, if that was too much bike then I think I’d be looking elsewhere. Trail bikes these days seem to be more downhill focussed than they were back then.

Having said that I use a 2013 Five for (mostly) tame XC stuff and love it. Even though I never come close to its limits I still prefer it as an all round bike to the 2006 Five I had before.

As above, if an older Five is too much, then those are not best….

Perhaps shorter travel?

I went into Cycleworks in Leatherhead yesterday with a similar question – theyve got a Five and T130 in stock. They were very helpful so I’d recommmend going in if it’s local.

Most of my riding is in the Surrey hills but I’m moving north later this year and want to get myself a do it all bike.

The T130 sizing didnt work for me – the medium came up short and the large was too tall. I felt quite pitched forward on both.

The Five sizing and geometry suited me much better and didn’t feel too extreme. The spec on the basic model isn’t that special but it’s functional. I’ll be getting one.

What does “too much bike” mean? Is it too compromised uphill and along or is it too good downhill? If a bike is awesome downhill and just as good along and up then can it still be “too much bike”?

If I wanted something shorter travel then I’d be looking at the short travel yet slack & tough 29ers like the Following, Phantom, Smuggler, etc.

It’s a good question. What do we mean by too much bike? Is it just a stick with which to beat ourselves for not riding as hard as we think we should?

All bikes are a compromise, so really you just need to look at what’s important to you and what doesn’t matter so much. What the bike was designed for may not even be that important.

Do you like to weave about on super tight routes, or do you prefer more open rocky trails? In the first case you may prefer something that changes direction quickly (e.g. steeper head angle), but in the latter you may want something that holds a line better (e.g. slacker head angle).

Do you want something that leaps forward as soon as you stomp on the pedals (e.g. shorter travel, smaller wheels) or are you happy to wind up the speed a bit more slowly as long as you can carry that momentum through the rough sections(e.g. longer travel, bigger wheels).

Personally I tend to ride tamer XC routes, so you’d think I’d opt for a XC bike. But in fact I tend to ride on my own in remote areas and often don’t know what the descent will be like till I get to it. What I most want is a bike that wont leave me bruised and bloody in the middle of nowhere, so I’ll take all the skill compensation I can get. Of course that means I’m slower uphill than I could be but I’m a much better climber than I am a descender so I can live with that and since I’m on my own I’m not holding anybody up. The point is, by most people’s definition I’m (comically) over-biked, but it suits me.

Do you like to weave about on super tight routes, or do you prefer more open rocky trails? In the first case you may prefer something that changes direction quickly (e.g. steeper head angle), but in the latter you may want something that holds a line better (e.g. slacker head angle).

I know that this tallies with the standard view on head angles but I think it’s much more complicated than that. For starters, do we get to choose the trails we ride or do we ride the trails we have? In the South East of England it isn’t rocky and the trails are twisty, so that’s what I mostly ride. And the Spitfire in its slack setting has a sub 66 degree head angle but it’s brilliant around those corners. On our group rides I think we have a wider range of bikes than you’d see anywhere else – 26, 27.5, 29, 26 fat and 29+ wheel sizes, rigid, hardtail and full-sus, travel up to 170mm, geometries from short steep old school to long slack modern.

I think the biggest part of it is how you personally ride a bike – the physicality that comes most naturally to you. I’d rather have a bike that requires more work to make it turn but then has more grip and is easier to balance on the ragged edge. And the other part of how a bike rides is how it affects your confidence – for instance I’d rather have a front wheel well out in front of me. Aaron Gwin in 2013 was a fine example of this – a supremely talented rider who’d come from dominating two seasons on one bike, changed to another with very different geometry and he couldn’t put it together on the new bike.

I know that this tallies with the standard view on head angles but I think it’s much more complicated than that.

You’re right and you make some very good points. That’s why I stuck the “e.g.” in front of those bits really as you might like twisty stuff and still not want a steep head angle. I agree that it probably depends how you ride. Some people seem to ride the front wheel and others ride the back and different designs do seem to suit different folks. All part of the fun I guess.