[Closed] are long travel hardtails dead ?

so is 120mm the sweet spot then . I have 140mm on mine with a dtswiss 15mm bolt throu but when I tried a set 120 reba's they seemed stiffer ! with a QR

You'd have to be pulling some serious G or have your weight too far forwards for your head angle to change drastically in corners. And if you're cornering that hard on a LTHT either the terrain is relatively smooth or you're bloody good, so it won't matter either way.

Depends on the bike. IMO anything over about 130mm and hardtails don't handle as well.

Kudos, this may seem confusing but there's nothing to stop you setting up a 6" fork with the same spring rate and compression damping as a 4" fork, so that the amount of sag and change in travel per Newton of force and thus change in head angle is identical. It would just take 50% more force to reach full travel on the 6" fork assuming linear action, so you won't bottom out as hard/often.

cause

coarse ^

Kudos, this may seem confusing but there's nothing to stop you setting up a 6" fork with the same spring rate and compression damping as a 4" fork, so that the amount of sag and change in travel per Newton of force and thus change in head angle is identical. It would just take 50% more force to reach full travel on the 6" fork assuming linear action, so you won't bottom out as hard/often.

Thus defeating the point of having a longer travel fork.

Why does that defeat the object? It means you can ride your bike ~20% faster/harder (suspension forces increase with the square of speed) before you hit the bump-stops. And a bike that still has suspension travel left will grip better or roll faster than one which hasn't.

I am thinking surely there is a cut of point with the amount of travel up front and how usable it is, since the back end doesn't move as such.

Kind of relating to GW's point:

You're probably not hitting the descents all that fast anyway TBF.What rear rim/tyre (and pressure) are you using to ward off all the hits your huge forks sort out for you?

Like say if your going downhill and you hit a large rock bottoming out say a 180mm fork this causes the bikes geometry to steepen significantly, then as the back end goes over the rock the whole frame pivots on the front hub steeping the geometry further; throwing the rider into the dirt?

i'm a massive hardtail fan really and love ltht's. for me i hope i never have to ride a 29er. I've always run quite a stiff fork on the ltht and still bottom it out sometimes. Granted less can be more but I love the freedom having the xtra travel gives for hooning downhills and that extra margin for error. It's a nice feeling knowing the back end is bouncing around and the front is dominant in absorbing everything. Plus you can get away with higher pressures in the tyres which is handy if you've been doing drops to flat half an hour prior to your descent.Personally I find these bikes add versatility and feel great. Granted they may not be required all the time.

Look, I'm not interested in theories about what might work or should work on the trail. I have tested both on a variety of bikes and long travel hardtails do not handle as well as shorter travel ones.

Rather than speculating what should work, go out and test it on a few different bikes and then come back and report your findings. Riding your bike 20% faster/harder because you have a longer travel fork is all good in theory, but in practice it doesn't work.

as long as i'm having fun I really don't care. I have a 150mm BFe and it is great fun. I'm happy no matter what people say

i think was thinking behind the summer season - slack angles yet optimised for a 100mm or whatever travel fork - fair enough. I guess to a point I agree - a burley stiff fork and relaxed angles are fine and probably account for much of confidence given to ltht's. So the issue is not the travel but a frame designed around a burley fork - and as it happens such forks are usually lt.

thing is there's not many short travel burley forks that are any good for hard riding ( unless the travel adjust oin a longer fork is used) . Most of these shorter travel forks are for dirt jumping ( xeno and marz DJ etc 80-100mm) and do not have very good all round abilities, outside of jumping and 4x So the frames in part have been designed around what forks are in the market. Still nice to have the extra travel too though if you hit large rocks etc at speed.

I get what Kudos is saying and I kind of agree, I've had a 7" HT in the past (Exalt) and TBH opting for the full 7" of travel just didn't work out right, plenty of people who had them prefered them with 150 or 140mm forks, I think alot of it is in the angles, applying the same HA to a HT frame primarily designed for DH use doesn't quite work but I do think an ultra slack HT might, of course it wouldn't be a great climber which is what alot of LTHT riders are after too that happy medium position a non-FS 'AM' bike that goes up as well as down....

I reckon 120-130 is probably the sweet spot for many certainly going over 150mm of travel means your sagged HA probably isn't much different from a firm 5" fork anyway... and yep the limiting factor will always be the back end kicking you in the arse anyway...

So yeah 5", 6" tops unless you are building a proper DH HT then I think a very slack HA is needed to make 6"+ work effectively...

as long as i'm having fun I really don't care. I have a 150mm BFe and it is great fun. I'm happy no matter what people say

I'm not a fan, but if someone is having fun, that is the main thing.

Horses for courses.

human propelled fun machines are ace 😀

Why would I want to test a theory which makes little sense and my own experience confirms is more wrong than right?

The head angle getting too steep theory would only make sense if all these long fork HTs had steeper head angles when fully compressed than shorter travel HTs. Unsurprisingly they don't!

Also, fork length and fork travel don't fully correlate. Bigger stanchion forks are longer A-C than equal travel slimmer forks. And it varies from brand to brand. Fox 32 140s are the same length as Rev 130s.

And another thought for you - on a 150mm HT your feet only have to move up 100mm when the rear wheel passes over a bump which has bottomed out the forks. Can you bend your legs 4"? Your hands are almost directly over your front axle, your feet are well ahead of the rear. It would be very different if your cranks were above your rear axle, like the hellish thump when sat in the back of a small car when going over speed humps.

Haven't long switched from a burly 100mm HT (Identiti Mr hyde with 100mm Society Xeno 36mm stanchion/20mm axle forks) to a burly 150mm HT (BFe with Marzocchi 44 32mm stanchion/9mm QR forks).

So far I actually think the BFe handles better. Sure, it wanders a bit on steep switchback climbs but in every other situation I've ridden it so far it feels sharper and more sure-footed than the Mr Hyde did.

I ran the forks on the Mr Hyde as soft as I could to counteract their girder-like build and have the BFe's forks running harder than recommended for my weight to avoid too much dive.

All this is always going to be VERY subjective. For me I seem to be better 'centred' on the BFe which I guess is down to the angles more than the forks, and this gives me more confidence in the corners while the longer fork/slacker angles on the BFe make it more confidence-inspiring when things point down (the steeper, shorter Mr Hyde always felt a bit nervous on steeper stuff).

Long way round to say 'ride what you like and feel comfortable/fastest/funnest on'.

slainte 😀 rob

i think alot of this maybe the way the fork is setup. If it dives all the time as soon as the front brake is hit then that may not be fun as the ha will change i guess. Although tbh the change isn't a massive factor imho as per above post. Guess it may come down to the frame too. Surley not all ltht's are the same.

What a load of cock this thread is. Basically some people like some bikes others don't. Why argue about it?

I rode for a short time a 29erm for the first time the other day. Granted it was a bloody fancy titanium IF frame. But it was really good I got up a climb easier than I ever had before I really liked it and would like to try more. I can even see myself owning one. However when I got back on my BFe I knew that I would never swap it for a 29er. My two bikes are perfect for my riding, I can see a 29 being useful if i did longer more xc rides but I don't.

well said,

human propelled fun machines (hpfm), I think that should be the new name for all bicycles

"i'm off to ride my human propelled fun machine" sounds so much more interesting

"I'm off to ride my bike" has gotten old hat 😛

Long way round to say 'ride what you like and feel comfortable/fastest/funnest on'.

Yeah this.

I find I can corner faster, jump better and have more fun on a ht with less travel. If you find a LT hardtail works better for you, great.

Bike handling is subjective.

lol

Sancho - Member
totally true, Ive got two shops in Leeds and only sold a couple of 29ers.

I dont like the hype and I dont like that fact that the trend has come from America where they dont ride trails like we do in the UK, they generally mince about on big fire roads and that is why they all want 29ers.

You mean you don't stock them and you tell all your prospective customers they are crap? 😉

Right I'm getting some 120mm forks ! For me surge ! 🙂

Love my cove hummer
now with 140 travel
great for dartmoor
exmoor the quantocks.
Only 1 of the dozen
or so giys i ride with
has a 29er,but hey this
be devon not california!

GW - Member

07/8 Giant STP

Hmmmm...

One mans long travel hardtail is another mans trail hardtail... what constitutes long travel on a hardtail these days anyhow?

Is a bike designed for a 100mm fork a long travel hardtail just because someone has banged a 150mm fork on the front?

What does any of this have to do with 29ers????

IMHO... there is a HUGE difference between a hardtail frame to which you can INSTALL a long travel fork, and a hardtail frame which is DESIGNED for a long travel fork.

Head angle is just one part of a puzzle involving other variables such as seat angle and bottom bracket height... shove a long fork on a frame such as a BFe/456 and you get...
1. slack head angle which can feel like good fun
2. slack seat angle which means you'll be falling off the back on the techy climbs.
3. high bottom bracket which mans flip/flop steering and a general feeling of tottering about at low and high speed in the gnar

Don't mention travel adjust forks... a poor crutch for a crap design 😉

My long travel hardtails has 160mm of travel, a 63deg head angle, a 72 degree seat angle and a low bottom bracket... it's ace.

I'm looking forward to trying a long travel 29er hardtail.

Good topic gents, just thought I'd add my thoughts. I have 2 long travel hard tails at the mo, a Chumba hx1 with 140mm talas forks and a pace rc 325.5 with revelations. I also have a 100mm kona hard tail.
All I can say is that they are all great bikes, but I think the most important component is tyre choice, not travel. I have ridden my chmba down some gnarly stuff with slippy as hell schwalbe Tyres and been scared witles, a week later ridden the same stuff on my 100mm kona with frilly panaracer tyres and it was a blast....maybe we are too focused on suspension at times. Who knows.
I have also ridden in the alps on an orange 160 alpine alongside a riding buddy on a 100mm travel blur xc, and he made me look like I was sat still....the reason, I was on a hire bike and he was on his own steed..

HO... there is a HUGE difference between a hardtai frame to which you can INSTALL a long travel fork, and a hardtail frame which is a hardtail frame which is DESIGNED for a long travel fork. DESIGNED for a long trave DESIGNED for a long trave fork.

*Bfe's stays being half inch longer

My long travel hardtails has 160mm of travel, a 63deg head angle, a 72 degree seat angle and a low bottom bracket... it's ace.

They must have changed the definition of "low bottom bracket" because last time I looked a BFe had 12.25" BB height.

Hmmmm...

😆 Cheers for pointing that out SM2, BBs lower on an STP too

scott_mcavennie2 : They must have changed the definition of "low bottom bracket" because last time I looked a BFe had 12.25" BB height.

What fork length Scott?

I can only go from what I've measured... the BFe I borrowed had a 160mm Wotan fork it and the bottom backet was at the same height as the wheel axles with 25% sag, which with big tyres on was 330mm (13").

My LTHT with 160mm forks sagged 20% has the bottom bracket 25mm lower which is 12".

I quite liked the BFe but the fork at 160mm was simply too long for the geometry of the frame (IMHO etc etc).

You measure BB height sagged? May I ask why?

You measure BB height sagged? May I ask why?

When I ride my bike the fork is sagged 😆

I've measured it both ways but since I was trying to understand how the geometry (BB height) changes with travel I've found it makes more sense to go by the sagged measurements. I've also found that using a very soft fork to "over-sag" a frame makes it ride like shite so giving the sag figure as 25% (or 30% whatever) makes sense (to me anyway).

It helped me understand what I liked about a frame I had but broke, what I didn't like about it's replacement, what I wanted and liked in the next one, and what I really wanted and like in the one I replaced that one with (this could go on a bit).

I sometimes have the forks on my trailstar out to 140mm but it seems to ride better with them at 120 ish for general riding about then wound al the way in for jumping. Think its a bit to do with the divey forks but also bb height.

What a load of cock this thread is. Basically some people like some bikes others don't. Why argue about it? I rode for a short time a 29erm for the first time the other day. Granted it was a bloody fancy titanium IF frame. But it was really good I got up a climb easier than I ever had before I really liked it and would like to try more. I can even see myself owning one. However when I got back on my BFe I knew that I would never swap it for a 29er. My two bikes are perfect for my riding, I can see a 29 being useful if i did longer more xc rides but I don't.

I can honestly say that riding your bfe has confirmed the fact to me that 26" wheels suck , I have a set of 29er 140mm all ready to go on my new build 😀

I just realised that I misread your post. I thought your LTHT was a BFe, which does not have a low BB at 12.25" (I have no idea at what fork length that is measured - you'd need to ask Cy).

I wouldn't consider a sagged BB height at 12" low either. Very few LTHTs would have what I'd consider a low BB height. I saw that chumba stating 11.5" recently and believe the NS Surge does as well, but again I have no idea what fork length they are measured at.

Measuring unsagged makes much more sense to me.

As soon as I read a geometry chart of a sagged bike my brain automatically converts the fork lenght to compensate. Ie. 160 @ 25% = 120 and it's a PITA if I'm honest.
While riding, sag is not a static measurement (or even an accurate average measurement) and I don't run anywhere near 25% sag so I have to work with static unsagged numbers before the rest makes sense.

Would you measure full sus geometry sagged too?
That would be a massive headache for me as I run around 15-20% sag front and 35-45% rear but know what static geometry I like/suits me.

GW - my hmmmm response is nothing sinister! Your choice of bike is an interesting answer to that perennial question of shorter travel forks but with trail bike geometry rather than XC geo. I could never ride an STP without a 600mm seatpost and most of it stuck out of the seat-tube though! I like aluminium so long as manufacturers actually use it's avantages and make a lighter frame. There's lots of alu hardtail frames that are so overbuilt you may as well get something steel.

So, light alu frame with slacker than XC geometry for sub-120mm forks - anyone? I can think of Whyte but that's about it. The Ragley mmmBop was a claimed 3.5 pounds, but obviously for longer forks and clearly didn't sell for whatever reason.

How tall are you and what inside leg?

5' 10 and a bit (the bit is very important!) and a 33 inside leg if you believe M&S.

Currently run a medium Chameleon with U-Turn Pikes at 100 to 120mm mostly but even then the seat angle is too slack. There must be something that's as good fun down but less compromised on the way back up.

The 600mm seatpost was an overexaggeration, but I'd still need a 450mm at full stretch which is a big old lever.

using a very soft fork to "over-sag" a frame makes it ride like shite

Yeah with too low a spring rate, it starts to become over-active under compression which upsets balance. But you can compensate to some extent by increasing compression damping if your fork has this feature.

That doesn't avoid the problem of the fork fully extending when climbing which feels horrible, unless it has a lock-down feature. I'm quite interested in the Sektor Dual-position coil fork because you can squash it between 150 to 110mm and then lock-out using the compression damper while riding (poplock). I think this is more convenient than the u-turn idea which you cant practically adjust without getting your weight off the fork and then there is all that winding. And the DP coil is much lighter too. Anyone got one yet?

Sometimes it just seems simpler to use a shorter travel fork. 🙂