I’ve ridden enough steep tricky stuff on a rigid to think it’s an advantage as often as not
Yeah agree, you can really lean on the front wheel in a way that you can't with a suspension fork. So whilst the head angle is steep it's not as bad as you think it's going to be once you sus it out.
Of course, still not as good as a nice slack MTB and I can still do more on mine, but I can still do most of it on the rigid. The key point for me is that there are good steep trails that are remote, for me, and require a lot of lanes and fire road to get to which is a chore on my old slack MTB and takes ages.
I was up riding up cutgate today, feeling smug on my new Stumpjumper (last time I did it I was on a 26 inch Zesty about 8 years ago, and it's much easier on a modern trail bike!) and a guy came rattling down on a rigid bike, fully loaded. Was hugely impressed, its a very rocky descent in places.
Then, some nutter came down on a gravel bike, but he didn't look like he was enjoying much. Just shows these kind of bikes really can do pretty much anything. Not sure I'd be fussed for proper trail riding though!
Yes, Jones bikes are fantastic ATBs. Unfortunately a bit too pricey. Stooge also fantastic ATBs.
I have a rigid Ramin 29er with Rock Razors f&r which is my "Flat barred aggro-gravel ATB". Does a pretty good job as I'm not a fan of drops off-road, but agree with anything "anything rough at speed isn’t great on a rigid bike", although there is nuance to that as well. Fast roots are particularly rubbish mind.
On the whole my favourite type of riding and bike. Always regretted ditching mine for a Rockhopper, and spent the next 25 years buying and swapping MTBs in an attempt to rebuild an ATB. The nearest I got off the peg was a Genesis Vagabond and then a Longitude. I also never stopped calling mine ‘ATBs’ Do I get a prize or summink? I settled at 2.1 tyres so not sure about plus size.
The old trails near me were designated ATB. Just another name for a mountain from back in the day.
I think a company owned the name so no one else could use it hence MTB stuck.
I was riding 'gravel' on one of these circa 1980something
Didn't the industry originally go with "ATB" because the word on the street was that Gary Fisher (or one of his crowd) had trademarked "mountain bike" until it turned out that, as is so often the case, the word on the street was "bollocks" at which point everyone adopted "mountain bike" and we didn't hear about ATBs again? Until now, obv.
^ perhaps Mountain Bike was the more emotive term anyway and it captured the imagination more than the rather practical sounding 'All Terrain Bike'. Some marketing is about simply understanding what's exciting about the product and Gary Fisher et al got it. So mountain bike may have become the general term whether TM'd or not, like we often call vacuum cleaners 'hoovers' whatever the brand actually is. It has that sort of quality.
'ATB' just reminds me of the 90's/00's cheap BSOs which presumably they couldn't legally call a 'mountain' bike because they were barely capable of riding in the local park without falling apart.
ATB is such a generic term, it could apply to a cheap hybrid, or an expensive rigid MTB, or a gravel bike. Hence why we have more specific bike genres based on what they're aimed at doing - gravel/adventure/bikepacking/etc.
I suppose ATB would work as a general category, with the specific types of bike below it. Much like the term mountain bike covers XC/Trail/enduro/downhill.
