I have been trying to work out which one to buy for almost a month now and would welcome any advice available.

Will the SS be too slack on flowing trails with a 160mm 36/Lyric/AM2 sized fork?

Main use will be general trail centre duties, all day rides and Rangers Path/Sticks Pass epics but I also love steep technical trails like Foel or Mynydd Ddu tracks although I have the DH bike for proper DH duties. I used to run 160 AM2's forks on a Prophet which was ideal in the XC setting but just a little too slack in AM mode but sold the Prophet to pay for a DH frame.

The DH build is just a little too impractical for trail and AM duties so the new bike will need to fill the rather large gap between this and my road bike.

Do I go for the safe option of the 456 or will the SS be remain alert enough on flowing trails with a 160mm 36/Lyric/AM2 sized fork?

almost certainly silly slack.

the whole point of the summer season is that you can achieve a very slack head angle with cheap 100mm forks.

if you want to run 160mm forks, get a 456. but wind the forks in a bit cos that's still silly.

or get a blue pig.

it will be mega slack, too much so I would say. I have raced DH on mine with pikes at 140mm and it was fine. Lyric coils wound to 140 would be ok.

I was advised on here that the 456 is fine. And it is 🙂

160mm will be really slack. I run 120mm forks and it is just right for most trails and pointing down. The SS was designed with this in mind. Happy with mine.

My summer season was great with 130mm forks, but better with them wound in to 120mm.

I didn't like it with 140mm Pikes for some reason.,

My 456 I have now is great with 140mm forks on(Magura Thor) and was fine with 160mm Fox 36's, if a tad heavy and a bit much but it climbed fine with them on.

Cheers for the replies. 456 it is then. The budget won't allow for anything other than an on-one never mind an extra set of forks. Just got to decide which of the rather uninspiring colours to choose from now.

Budgetbe-damned, the 456 is a fantastic bike
APF

paging doug!

Sorry to hijack your thread……been trying to email you on your mtbtechniques address….does it work?