[Closed] A hardtail for a bad back

Recently started riding a HT again after about 6years on FS and my back was in pieces so I tried the thud buster st. One of the best bits of kit you can buy.

I fitted a ti WTB saddle in place off SDG and the bike is transformed.

My mate road a thudbuster on his HT after braking his back in Whistler... used it for a year till his back was all good again. Really rated it, said it was brilliant.

thud buster in a pipedream sirius works for me .

I use a Van Nic Ti seatpost on my steel 456 - would recommend it to anyone who wants a bit more cush.

a nice [cotic]springy steel frame a U.S.E suspension seat post and a comfy saddle , ive found my charge spoon to be one of the comfiest saddles i ve ever owned

BTW When I used my 456SS with an EC90 post it was waaaay comfier than now with the Thomson post. Would come back to it but I got myself a ti frame for XC and 456SS for silliness.

Find a HT with butted tubes, strengthen your core muscles.

I doubt that the frame material is going to make much difference to your back issues.

How much is the frame likely to flex? Of the order of millimetres? What's the size of the obstacles/roughness you will be riding over? Probably at least centimetres, up to tens of centimetres, and maybe drops that are larger still.

IMO saddle, seatpost, tyres and riding position will be more important. As will standing up on the rough stuff.

Carbon seatpost definately makes it more comfy when going over the rough stuff.. Get out the saddle and you won't have the problem. 😉

strengthen your core muscles.

+1

From my experience - if you have any back problems a sus seatpost on a hardtail does not come close to the protection you get from a full sus frame. If you dont have back problems and are just looking for comfort I'm sure you'll be fine.

The differences will be tiny but a good one would be a Sanderson Life.

In addition if frames are now CEN they'll be stiffer anyway?

Better to go tubeless on a bigger volume rear tyre - thats the biggest gains.

In addition, Thudbuster- tried that. AWFUL.

I have spent 2 months off the bike with a back injury <sympathy please as had none from my wife> got out for the first time at the weekend on my rigid Cotic Simple

How much is the frame likely to flex? Of the order of millimetres?

So the answer if you really don't want to go full-sus is a big fat back tyre [b]and[/b] a sus-post. Also worth thinking about geometry and riding position.

Longterm, if you really want to extend your riding 'career' I'd switch to a short travel full suss for any back sufferers.

Spesh Epic?

Why suffer for your art? Longterm you'll wake up one day with a permanently niggly-spongled back which will end up you having longer spells off the bike until one day........ you realise you haven't ridden for a year.

Thanks all, some really good food for thought here :o)

Few mates with dodgy backs swear by use suspension posts. Let me know if you fancy trying one - I bought one for a particularly bumpy mayhem on a rigid bike, which I have not used since..
J

Everyone is different i know, but for me my Thudbuster LT is a great bit of kit. Used to run it on my old Trek 8000 and made it way less harsh. It's now on my SS Inbred 29er and is great. Obviously not a replacement for FS but takes the sting out of the ride and means you can peddle whilst sat down more over the bumpy stuff.

Works so well you don't really notice it - until you put a rigid post back in again and you then realise what a great job it's been doing.....

I saw a really nice bike on Cannock Chase last week with one of those Brooks saddles with the gert big springs at the back. We laughed a bit - then thought what a good alternative to a suspension seatpost.

"Fit" is more important than "give" if you've got back problems. I used to use a USE sus post, but it didn't really help me; I found that changing saddle position, bar height and bar width did a lot more to help.

With a bad back, DON'T get a BFe with a Thomson post and a Charge Spoon Saddle is all I'll say... 😉

Just had 18 months off the bike after spinal fusion following a disk giving up. In fact Sunday I made a return to swinley and felt reborn!! I adjusted the saddle position and brought a shorter stem to give me a more upright position.

I really rate the USE seatpost. Was torn between this and the thudbuster but didn't like the look of the movement of the thudbuster

Used the USE xcr carbon for kielder 100 and it felt great. Have kept it on ever since

I use a Sumo USE shokpost on a Van Nic Tuareg and really like it.
Just enough to take the trail buzz out ,will take the edge of a big hit and does not bob.
It does however have a side to side movement that I can't get rid of (I have tried new keys) but I am used to it now.

[b]Tricky [/b]

Does your carbon one have the side to side thing going on?

I saw a really nice bike on Cannock Chase last week with one of those Brooks saddles with the gert big springs at the back.

With a bad back, DON'T get a BFe with a Thomson post and a Charge Spoon Saddle is all I'll say.

Pace RC303 probably not a good call either.:-)

Cotic Soul with a good quality carbon post & WTB Rocket V Ti saddle would be my choice. Some 2.3-2.4 tubeless tyres also a good call, 2.35 SB8's for Summer / Nev/Blue Groove for the rest.
I've heard normal Cro-Mo is not as stiff as 853 so the Sanderson Breath might be a good one.

Not sure if conventional stays are more comfortable than wishbone types. Anyone ?

Do some people sit down all the time.....

things that will usually make a hardtail a bit more comfortable:

- small diameter seatpost (small being 27.2ish)
- long, flexy seatpost
- skinny/correctly ovalised top tube
- suspension seatpost
- fatter/lower pressure tyres

And that's about it...

I've heard normal Cro-Mo is not as stiff as 853 so the Sanderson Breath might be a good one

Without kicking it all off again, no - all steels are the same stiffness but have differing strength so unless the 853 has much thinner tube walls it won't more flexy and even then the actual frame design and other aspects as above will have far more influence.

And the profile of stays makes next to no difference at all - it's just marketing.

My back used to give me jip when I rode my old 853 Kona Explosif, so I bought a 853 Cotic Soul. So much more comfortable but I still find the comfort of it seems to relate to the tyres I run. 2.1 Kendas at 30 psi give me back ache, 2.35 at the same pressure are much better. I always wondered why my 853 Dialled Alpine was easier on my back, but one I used the same tyres on both bikes the difference was less noticeable. I still think the difference in their respective seat tube angles may have something to do with it, but even though they are all made of the same tubing there are still so many other variables(top tube length, stem, seat post, saddle) it's difficult to get a definitive answer.

Do some people sit down all the time.....

I do when its my round.

Although a Cotic Soul is a smoother ride than most, as said above it's no FS if you want protection, and the best bit of advice I've seen by far is figuring out your riding position to give you a more comfortable set up, plus stretch your hamstrings and quads everyday as they pull like mad on your lower back if tight. Try a much higher bar position, try tilting your saddle forwards (to prevent backwards rotation of your hips and curving of lower back), try a shorter position. Hell, spend £40 on a proper physio assessment of your posture and strength. There's no magic bullet. One of my bikes will make it a little better, but getting fixed is biomechanical, not equipment.

You're rubbish at marketing Cy.

What you should have written (using skills I learnt on the Neovite thread) is:

A Cotic will make you ride further, faster and in more comfort than any other frame. Several riders have said so and as such it's definitely true plus some studies show that iron in your diet improves athletic performance and since the Soul is steel, it will osmotically transfer performance to you through mycocardial transverse pathways resulting in you going faster still ( I first saw this effect in a Peruvian Rain Forest tribe).

The CEN test also adds speed to the frame through dynamic transferrance of stress through the freeflowing welds while helping to avoid stressing your aerobic system due to the reduction in strain at the head tube.

And women will throw themselves at you.

As always excellent guidance people, I think I have a game plan that may well mix some Physio with the right frame, set up and posture, basically I'll try it all....

fasthaggis > yes.. thought it wasn't tightened at first but there's a slight bit of play side to side

And the profile of stays makes next to no difference at all - it's just marketing.

Bit of a sweeping statement no?

OK a hardtail is a hardtail, it's not supposed to have suspension, but some are designed to give/flex more than others, and some (like my BFe) are designed to be as direct as possible and end up being unforgiving as a result quite often...

Talking about what's actually out there, no, I don't think it is. Stays are triangulated, relatively short and consequently flex is very small compared to other things be that tyres, seatposts even the frame main tubes which you can visibly see flex. Obviously if you made stays thin/narrow enough they'd provide lots of flex but it'd be crap under power and fatigue could be a problem too so just not practical in the real world.

As to wavy stays, because there isn't significant flex in the rear triangle, it's pretty irrelevant.

I should probably add that I did some stress analysis on this at uni as part of a project and that's why I'm confident it's right. The results of that showed that the top tube has far more effect on 'comfort' than the stays because it deflects more and you'll see that on frames like the Spesh Roubaix which are designed for compliance with it's heavily ovalised tt at the seat tube.

As said fit is probably more important.

I run a 2nd generation 456Ti and recently moved from a normal I-Beam post to a carbon I-Beam post - amazing difference in comfort.

I'd have thought that the single most important thing would be riding position which is probably going to mean higher bars.

I got ti456 with a ti post and saddle. It replaced a Chameleon with a Thomson post. Helped my back enormously 🙂

Stays are triangulated, relatively short and consequently flex is very small compared to other things be that tyres, seatposts even the frame main tubes which you can visibly see flex.

I'm not disagreeing, a large back tyre, a saddle with flexy rails and a long thin seatpost will make infinitely more difference than a frame designed to have a bit more flex.

Obviously if you made stays thin/narrow enough they'd provide lots of flex but it'd be crap under power and fatigue could be a problem too so just not practical in the real world.

If you make it out of aly, yes fatigue is going to be a problem. With steel, or certainly ti, I don't think you'd ever stretch/bend/compress a stay in any way shape or form enough to push it past its elastic limit. So fatigue shouldn't really be an issue.

As to wavy stays, because there isn't significant flex in the rear triangle, it's pretty irrelevant.

I'd always assumed more to do with mud clearance issues, or just to look nice to be fair, but if bendy enough (a la Whyte 19 steel or ti) they could make a bit of difference probably.

I should probably add that I did some stress analysis on this at uni as part of a project and that's why I'm confident it's right.

Fair enough, I would agree with you that it's nowhere near as important as some people make out, but it can make a difference. Have you ever ridden a really flexy, noodly titanium hardtail? You can't question its strength as the material is inherently strong, it's just quite a flexible material compared to ally or even steel. If you look at something like a first generation Cotic Soda (known to be pretty flexy, I've seen one visibly bend a lot at the BB/chainstay area) compared to something with much beefier/stiffer stays from the outset... It's actually visible. OK, the flex may literally only be a few mm (so less than a 2.3" tyre would deflect under load by some margin), but there is a difference.

Haven't read the the entire thread, so it may have been suggested already.

Get a steel frame - it has a magical zing property that will make it exactly like a full suss frame but without losing any of the hardtail benefits.

I'd have thought that the single most important thing would be riding position which is probably going to mean higher bars.

Not necessarily at all... I suffer from back pain a bit, sometimes it comes on whilst I'm riding.

The way I'd combat it on a bike would be to ride a bike 2 sizes too big for me, with a negative rise stem and flat bars... To stretch me out and stop any curvature occuring in my back.

A shorter more upright position is great for control, but not so great for my back at all!

b r & wippersnapper - your thoughts on the 2nd Gen 456Ti? Is it stiff out back or does it give? (I had the 1st Gen and it felt super springy).