Do you have to bear with it/ride it differently or just get used to it? What fork length is best?

fantastic at descending, shit at climbing with a 140mm pick.

sold after 1 ride

much better with a 120mm fork than a 140mm in my experience, it’s designed to be slack with a shorter fork, so not really optimised for a 140mm fork (sorry ton!)
Frame’s pretty much a blunt instrument though, not much of the legendary steel flex going on! ISCG mounts are nice for running 1×9…

I run mine with a 160mm 36 on the front and love it. It means my hardtail xc, full sus xc and dh bike all have about the same head angle. If you’re not used to super slack bikes it will take a bit of getting used to, especially at low speeds. Great bikes though.

Strange, isn’t it? I prefer mine at 110mm on my old Pikes.

Couldn’t imagine it at 160mm, bet steveh would hate mine.

Best advice is try with different fork lengths to see which suits you and your riding style/terrain.

I had one which I’ve just sold. Ran it with 130 Revs and climbed much better than I thought it would. I reckon 120 would be spot on.

Mine ran at 120mm. Bit wandery on the up but awesome down. Must say the blue pig that replaced it (with 140 mm pikes) feels just as awesome going down yet steers quicker.. Can’t explain why. Maybe that’s subjective!

Both make great ‘mess about in the woods’ bikes!

I had one , ran it with 120mm Recons . I thought it was a great bike, more than capable climbing to a point, great on the downs, a little slow on the steering. Great all rounder in my opinion, it “was” as said above optimised to run shortish forks.

Sold it now though, only because i wanted a full susser to cover all my riding.

Would have another one though.

Frame i owned for the shortest amount of time, sold after a couple of rides. I ran it with Pikes, just felt wrong, too stiff, way to agricultural for my refined taste!

I’m 6’4, and had a 20″ SS, ran it with 120 rebas and it was superb going downhill – didn’t crash once!

I didn’t find the uphill too bad to be honest – although if I got one again I’d probably go for the 18″, it would be a bit more maneuverable.

For the price of a cheap steel frame from on one or ragley, you could get a few skillz lessons as part of a group. I reckon skillz lessons will have a much bigger impact on most peoples’ riding experience than the intricate nuances of a particular frame if that’s what you’re after?

snowslave ..totally agree !!

I have one of the first SS frames, raw, preorder frame without ISCG..
run it with pike and absolutely love it!!!

would never sell it…

I wanted to sell mine, had a pint, kept the bike. All the other bikes are pretty much gone, this one stays. Forks? Best with 36 Talas (90-160mm), great with Z1SL 150mm, should be fun with 130mm Pace jobs (can’t be bothered to fit them).
I’ve decided to keep it, the only other bike will be a featherweight ti HT with 72/71 deg. angles for quick blasts on flattish terrain.

Mine was best around 120mm

It made me ride stuff I’d never even consider on my inbred.

it’s designed to be slack with a 4″ (100mm) fork, anything more than that is for kinky weirdos like Steveh

(you love it)

you can of course use whatever fork you like, but every inch longer than 4″ will knock a degree off the seat tube angle, which will begin to make climbing a bit tricky if you insist on really long forks…

for ultimate steel cheapness/longevity, get a summer season and some rockshox tora 318 u-turns.

and never, ever, weigh it.

If you are going to run one of these with 100mm wouldnt it be better to have a 456 with 120mm?

i ran mine with 140mm pikes.. really good fun on the fast descends.. didn’t have too many issues on the climbs.. rear end bloody stiff which resulted in a lot of pinch flats… real good fun HT.. recommend you get one..

ivantate – Member

If you are going to run one of these with 100mm wouldnt it be better to have a 456 with 120mm?

er, why would that be then?

shorter forks are (often) cheaper, should be less divey under braking, and will keep the front end lower – if you like that sort of thing.

Brant is a clever man, he guessed that the reason why some people like long forks is not because they need all that travel, but because they like the slacker head angle that results.

he gave the world the Summer season so that people could try slack head angle brilliantness without needing long, divey, expensive, forks. and without buggering up the B-B height and seat-angle.

about a thousand years later, he came up with the Ragley Blue Pig, which i can confirm, is bloody ace.

I chose a summer season as I already had a set of 100mm rebus and after riding a standard in red with 130 forks thought something slacker would be fun. It is. What it isn’t great for is forest singletrack or fast xc- too slack for the woods ime and I have built it a bit too heavy for that. It is ace for the peak district, Yorkshire dales, Lee quarry and whiatter- which is what I built it for.

I have found it needs/ wants to be ridden differently go my normal inbred. More weight over the front, thrown into corners and down slopes. Seems to reward more aggressive riding and has given me confidence to ride some things faster than I have before. I like it, but it is heavy, unsubtle and made from scaffold poles- to me that is part of it’s charm as I am not precious about it

i loved mine, but they are a bit marmite, not everyone gets on with the slackness, but if you do they’re awesomely capable bikes.

Rode mine with pikes wound down to 120mm most of the time, though for long/steep descents 140mm was good. despite what some say i didn’t think it was too bad at climbing cos of the nice steep seat angle and fairly long chainstays.

not light, but not that heavy, think they’re about 5.5lbs, same as a blue pig, and bomb proof. cheap too, so why not give one a try!

having said all that, i’m selling mine, but only after a great couple of years, and to fund project 4x bike 🙂

In issue 7 of imb mag they had a guy who was racing 4x on a SS, sponsored by on-one.
If it’s good enough for a pro you might find it’s good enough for you.
And it’ll save you a rake of cash. HTH

or perhaps a pro could be good on anything and i need all the help i can get! 🙂

take you point though, part of the thought process was that I wouldn’t mind something smaller and a bit more chuckable. I did consider swapping my 16″ for a 14″ but then got distracted by the new nuke proofs / transition bank…

I bought Ton’s BTW. 😀

I bought one from a chap on here and with Marzocchi Shivers it’s great!

The top tube is really short compared to what I’m used to but it just seems to work. Could be something to do with the fact I race BMX – dunno?

Fwiw: My lad has a 14inch ss on 2×9 with a 100 mm recon. It’s built up around the 31lb mark. He uses it for 4x, jumping, xc and razzing around at the skate park.
I use it for 4x 😀 but I’m a bit taller than him and my inbred feels to big for getting air on. I think it’s an awesome bike. If I didn’t already have the inbred on a 140 fork I’d have a ss on a 100

I will admit I used to own a summer season ansd actually cracked it. My memory of it was it felt odd to eride and maybe I didn’t give it enough time to get used to it? I also rode it with 150 mazz forks and it washed out and handled odd possibly due to long forks

So far i’ve owned an inbred with 100mm forks then 456 with 130mm forks.

I rode my 456 back to back with my Bro in laws SS (both with 130mm forks) and bought an SS.

I then made the mistake of sticking 140’s on and it ruined its all round nature.

Summer Season with 130’s, perfect.

Although i don’t think i need a frame that strong i love the HA…

Got one and rode it for the first time today in 5 months. Felt really quick steering compared to my trek ex8 but that might be the difference between 120mm stem and a 50mm stem. Also just fitted hope AM4s which have stiffened it up loads.

Running reba teams @ 120mm. Always feels good to ride and kinda turns me into a bit of a hooligan!!

Mine – On-one 456 summer season, with marz 55′ forks, x9 drive train, etc

I get one with mine fine, its very fun. However it doesn’t climb very quick, however its better then my last bike for it (Spec’ SX trail).