Looking at the thread on a long and slack 29er, seems there are very varied opinions on what people consider long and slack. I’m a pretty old school guy and consider anything less than 72° fairly slack 😉 But comments in that thread suggested even 68° was not all that slack.

So, how tall are you? What is long reach to you? What do you think of as slack?

Me: 190cm tall, >25″ett or >450mm reach I think of as long, slack to me is less than 70° on a 29″ wheel. But then again I really not very gnar at all….

What do you call long and slack?

I can’t give a name, in case she finds out.

I suspect this is partly my fault so here goes for a 29er, I’ve no idea for anything else.

I’m 5:9, 5:10 if I really stand up straight but with long arms.

I’m riding a 3 year old 18 / medium frame with 16.9 (430) reach and 67 head angle.

Being as it’s a three year old frame (with geometry unchanged in at least 4 possibly 5 years) from an off the shelf manufacturer not some tiny custom outlet, anything longer and slacker than that qualifies.

A lot of the frames claiming to be long and slack fall well short of this.

New 29ht is 66 ha and 455 reach.I’m 6’2″ andabit.
Quick blast around and I’m thinking a -1.5 angleset would be ok and tbh I’d like another 25mm reach so I can run a shorter stem and push the seat forward on the rails (basically I should have bought the Last Fast Forward but would’nt wait or spend the extra £120).
All good info for the eventual ti custom.
Anybody wanna buy a 30mm stem?

Oh and I’m running a 60mm stem so would happily run a 30mm one and have a 30mm longer frame

67 will be deemed steep once the next wave of models are on the market.

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Thing being with a long (140mm) fork is those numbers are static.20mm of sag steepens everything up and unlike a fs compression does the same when riding.

I think with the 120mm 29er hardtail thread it’s all pretty relative- lots of what was being recommended wasn’t very long or slack, but there’s not really all that much that is, in that class.

I ride a medium BMC Trailfox 29er – it started out 1173mm long, which is pretty big. I think it’s one of the longer mediums out there- I know the new Mega 29, Geometron and some other Nicolais have it beat though but it’s longer than some modern XLs… <<edit- and that Pole, I want a go on that>>

But, it’s not that slack, only 67 degrees as standard. OK for a 29er but I still bashed a 2 degree heatset into it (making it longer too, obviously, but not by an awful lot, about 8mm I think). Reach is IIRC 440mm which feels good.

It’s pretty ace tbh! But a bike like that makes it tricky to look at other bikes without instantly going “Huh, it’s 2 inches too short”, like an MBR journalist. So that’s kind of my benchmark now, but I really don’t find much downside to it, even with 29er overhang I’m yet to ride anything that I go “this is too long”- it’s an easy bike to turn hard which seems to make up for the 2 extra inches over my last full suss

Keen to try something bigger… Got a testride on the Mega 29 in a bit.

I’m 5’10.5″ / 179cm. My new Bird Zero AM with 130mm fork and -2 deg headset is 445mm reach and 64.3 deg head angle. Wheelbase is around 1180mm. Equal trail on a 29er would be achieved with a 65.5 deg head angle. 50mm stem and 750mm bars with a fair amount of backsweep (thus shortening the stem). This is static – sagged you can add a degree to the head angle and 10mm to the reach.

The only downside to the geometry I’ve found is that you can’t pedal whenever you feel like and get away with it – but that’s due to the lowness (55mm BB drop) not the length. Corners majestically though!

I have a 26″ Five Am. It’s ETT is 600mm, no idea about reach! I had to lengthen my stem from 40mm to 50mm to make it feel OK. I think I could easily add on another 40mm to the frame at least. I have used offset bushings to take the HA to 65deg and drop the bb. Currently about to experiment with a works components -2 headcup to take me to 63deg and a few more mm of bb drop. I think that new school geometry is very interesting, and I’m seeing it as progress so far….

This?

Not much reach on that Daffy! 😉

Slack for me would be anything less than 65 degrees. For a given medium bike… Long would be a ETT longer than 620 and reach greater than 450. Wheelbase… Greater than 1200mm.

I guess it all depends on what trails you’re riding. All those figures on a road bike would be crazy.

5’7″ with 30″ inside leg / 15.5″ / 650b frame & 120mm fork: 605mm ETT, 303ish BB HT, 66′ HA, 427mm reach, 1155mm WB.

For trail riding locally.

I’m 183 cm, so I look for about 460-470 reach probably 65-66 Ha for 160-170 travel bike.

The “long” bit is more important than the “slack” bit for me.

You’re asking about 29ers, yeah?

So for a short-travel 29er or HT 29er I am content with a 68deg head angle, but I like 460mm-odd reach – and I’m medium sized at 5ft 8in.

Same reach would be desirable on a longer-travel 650b, but with a 65deg HA.

But comments in that thread suggested even 68° was not all that slack.

Going back a loooong time, there was a mag article from Tinker Juarez, who had Cannondale build him a frame with a “relaxed” HA of 69′ (i guess it was all 71/73 at the time) for his 24hr races so that when he was tired the handling was more stable. I recall thinking it was pretty crazy back then, but he was onto something for sure. Bearing in mind that his 69′ HA was for a pro XC endurance rider, it doesn’t equate to 68′ being slack for us weekend warriors who play around riding for fun rather than race.

It depends if you mean longer & slacker or long & slack

That “er”, or lack of it, makes all the difference.

If you look at the new Santa Cruz Hightower then yes its longer & slacker than the Tallboy but that just brings it to about the same as everything else released recently, which makes it neither long nor slack.

What I think a lot of people are looking for is something that is genuinely long and slack.

As 29ers go, the Last Bikes Fastforward is very low/long/slack:
http://www.last-bikes.com/products/frames/fastforward.html

Cotic’s Solaris and Stanton’s Sherpa are slacker/longer than normal.

Cotic’s Solaris and Stanton’s Sherpa are slacker/longer than normal.

Looking at the medium sizes of both those frames the numbers are not particularly long or slack, just fairly modern

That FastForward looks lovely.

Thanks for all the feedback guys, very helpful! Watch this space for revised Buzzard 🙂