[Closed] Enduro riding gods/esses?!

No riding god status required for a 170 bike here.
I ride the same trails (Tweed Valley) on my 130/150 bike and my 175/170 bike.
Just as much fun on both but a bit smoother on the faster rougher trails on the big bike.

you need to be able to justify being a riding godess and needing 170mm of travel nowadays!?

As my boss would say, you've got that arse about face. For most people that 170mm travel is because they're not riding gods, it flatters and let's them get away with the fact their riding style is more net of mackerel being dumped down stairs than majestic eagle soaring over the mountains.

Otoh you may need to be a riding god to keep up with your friends (or ego) on a 120mm hardtail but in the right hands there's very little "needs" anything more.

IANARG.

Stock and parts are major issues everywhere currently. However, Atherton were advertising that they had May build slots available for their 150mm travel 29er. Might be an option...

My "trail bike" is 150mm rear and 170mm front.

I'm also not a riding god.

As my boss would say, you’ve got that arse about face. For most people that 170mm travel is because they’re not riding gods, it flatters and let’s them get away with the fact their riding style is more net of mackerel being dumped down stairs than majestic eagle soaring over the mountains.

This^^^ very much was my thinking on my Sommet purchase 😉

I can go faster on a lot of the descents around the peak with more travel. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a riding god(ess) or not, I’d say it depends more where you ride and how much you value the climbing vs descending.

Bike parks / trail centres are generally pretty smooth though. Bike parks don’t really need big travel although obviously if you’re getting a lift to the top then you might as well.

net of mackerel being dumped down stairs

Metaphor of the day there! although you lost points on heavy use of acronyms!

I get the fact you still need the 'balls' to go down the descents but I tested a Ibis Mojo before, I almost fell asleep with how easy it was to ride over stuff. We seem to be moving away from any concept of 'one bike to rule them all' which my v1 bronson used to manage quite well. Maybe I should be prepared to ride more around the Lakes on my Ti Signal like postierich rather than just bimbles and embrace more travel... I guess 170mm doesn't automatically mean its not manouverable! I guess some of the descents around the Lakes would be amazing with even more travel to smush them up.

My Spesh Enduro is 170mm and it definitely flatters my less than elegant riding style. Less picking lines... more bombing down the middle, which is no less fun. I don't need all that travel, but when it climbs better than my 150mm travel bike, why not have it anyway?

Golfchick, how about the Kona Process 153 CR 29? 160 mm front and 153 mm rear travel. Ok its got an RS shock but others will fit.

Air is free and has no weight penalty.

I'm a bimbler but I loved my Jekyll with the switchable travel from 160 to 130. Somedays I needed that extra help.
Then again I'm off for a few hours in the Surrey Hills later on a borrowed Norco Sight (160 fork) and I do love that despite the lack of a short travel option.
Pedals rather well in my book.

i only ride park so 180/160mm for me 🙂

I’d have thought there were quite a lot of mid travel options - particularly on 29ers - that will pretty much cope with anything.

Transition Scout (albeit 650b)
SC Hightower
Commencal Meta 29 TR
Bird AM9

I was on a Bird Aeris with 170mm front / 160mm rear and it was a good skills compensator for a while. I found it dumbed down some trails too much so switched to the Aether 7 with 140f/130mmr travel and much prefer it for 95% of my riding. There’s very little I’m not quicker on as a result - only the really rough rock gardens and repetitive roots that slow me down a bit more.

Just popped the fork travel up to 150mm to see how it rides like that - going to give that a whirl this weekend.

Definitely not a riding god but 160/150 on my Sentry is spot on and my spine likes me for it, especially on bigger drop offs where I do use most of the travel. Great fun on tame stuff too and no issues going up. The Sentry Pro is currently available…

Kona Process 153 CR 29

PF BB - Thats me out!

Transition Scout - 650B no good.
SC Hightower - yep that's what I've got but it's red instead of blue!

Annoyingly it really needs to be available as frame only, I wouldnt buy a whole bike just to flog on everything that comes on it.

Kona Process 153 CR 29

PF BB – Thats me out!

It's a proper pf41 one to be fair, not some bb30 or similar +/-1mm tolerance thing. I really like mine, really fun to ride. And purple.

Privateer 141? Frame-onlys are due 4th week in June.

I am not a god but I'm pretty competent. My big bike is 160 front, 140 rear. Travel never stops me riding anything, full stop, and most of the time more travel would make no difference... (I only have the big fork for geometry).Sometimes it does for sure, but really flat out blasts through properly rough ground or other big features that use the travel aren't that common in the stuff I ride- at fort william, sure, it slows me down but in the tweed valley, not so much. Frankly the limiting factor is always skill and confidence and nerve, travel doesn't help you get down a steep slippy thing and can be a disadvantage if it's adding in bike movement and unpredictability. (the exact same fork with the exact same damper is less controlled at 170mm than it is at 160mm).

The other thing is, I'd rather have my 160/150 of really bloody fantastic suspension than more travel but less good. And to me, literally every bike that's got a load of effort put into anti-squat or other tricks to make a long travel bike pedal like it's not long travel, is less good at suspending. It might well be faster is all. 170mm travel is a lot to pedal all day without some sort of control on it and sadly switches are officially Out

Yup process 153 here

It does feel like cheating a bit sometimes, but still great fun

PF bottom bracket lasted 2 years then replaced with a works components screw in one

Bottom bracket is a daft reason to reject any bike!

I suspect availability may be a bigger factor

I agree that PF BBs are crap, but I also agree with kimbers that a screw together replacement works extremely well and removes the issues. (whilst for me it was not on a full sus, but on a surly - LBS warranty replaced 3 sram PF BBs in 6 months, then he just bought me a wheels manufacturing screw together fella).

Also, the screw together nature means its very easy to remove, service/grease, and re-install the bearings.

I am old, more travel means more comfort and more time in the saddle, I gave hardtails due to fillings, corneas, and joints all being rattled.

160mm front seems reasonable to me, still pedalable for general riding that isn't a gnarfest and not complete overkill or skill compensator but it seems generally nice bikes with 160mm front travel only are few n far between (not stock just general choice) and everything has gone to 170mm and I just can't seem to get my head round needing that much travel unless I suddenly turn into Isabeau Courdurier and I'm already what I would consider 'pretty competent'.

I have tested the 141 and its a very easy bike to get on with. Climbs really well and far more engaging than the 161. Great price too.
Ripmo AF also excellent. One of the nicest all round bikes to ride IMO.
Steelwise a Morph FS Custom geo build also excellent. A very fast and playful steel FS 29er. We have taken ours all over the UK and lastly Ft William for testing.

I think 160 front and 140 ish rear is ideal for anything in the UK. I used to swear by the 2020 Norco Optic which is a really fast bike up and down the hill. Just on long days that lack of travel and anything big mountain you will fatigue much quicker in the rough.

Agreed that 160mm is likely to be a good amount that means it won't be the bike holding you back. Re the pedaling though, don't be put off by more travel. There are plenty of big bikes that pedal really well. I rode a Nomad 4 with 180/170 for two years. Most of my riding was Innerleithen/Golfie/Dunkeld, but I used it for absolutely everything. Sure it was a bit hard work on flatter stuff, but there really wasn't much in the way of a downside for having all that travel. Did I "need" 180 up front? Definitely not, but it was loads of fun!

I'm also not sure there is any direct correlation between skill level and travel. Personally, I would buy the bike that seems best intentioned for the stuff you ride most of the time. Or, do what my girlfriend has done and run two very different bikes. In her case a 27.5 170/150 enduro bike and a 29er 130mm downcountry/trail bike.

What bikes have caught your eye?

I also own a 170mm rear travel "superenduro" bike and no way would I have it as my only bike.

If I had to have one bike and lived near the Lakes, I'd go 150 or 160mm rear, with a relatively lively pedaling characteristic. The new Mega 290 would be near the top of my list, having had a quick hop on one.

In my opinion people fixate too much in travel.
Bike with the same travel can have widely different behaviours and climbing efficiencies.
I've had a 140mm travel bike that climbed like a pig (Stumpy Evo) and a 150mm one (Bird AM9) that doesn't even need the climbing lever, it will climb as good as tyre/wheel weight allow.
Ergonomics and suspension kinematics play a huge role in this, I'd look into those before discussing 150 vs 170mm travels.

Regarding fork travel, I couldn't care less. Over the last 3 years I've had a Fox 34 at 130mm, a 34 at 140mm, a 36 at 150mm, a 36 at 160mm, and then a Lyrik at 160mm and now at 170mm. They all climbed the same, boobed nearly the same when standing and if I locked them out (or simply maxed out LSC) then it would feel as if climbing on a chopper. So fork travel would be the last place I'd look for in search of the climbing character of the bike.

There is a lot more to a bike than travel/weight.

-Enduro, amazing bit of kit, 170f/165r, 29 wheels. Rode it everywhere, did everything it wanted to.
-Stumpy evo, in theory it would be better on the mellower stuff than the enduro, in reality it climbed like shit and the kinematics on the rear were terrible. Stuck it back in a box and rebuilt the enduro.
-Privateer 161, it was alright, took ages to get the suspension right (and even after binning the super deluxe and fitting an X2), never really clicked with it and it had its issues.
-Geometron G1, amazing, like the enduro, it does everything and being adjustable, can put different wheels in there. Currently setup 170/175.

I'd look past the travel and look at the geometry, how it pedals and the performance of the suspension. I'd take less, better damped and better kinematics over more travel.

I can make my G1 go round the same local xc loop in the same time as my xc bike (smuggler), swap the wheels off the smuggler, easy as that. G1 has a better pedaliing characteristic.

Other half has a Scott Genius, for weekend stuff its 160f/150r, setup hybrid/mullet, pisses all over the cube she had, which was 150/150, quality of the suspension is far superior. For local xc stuff, 29 wheel goes in the back with an xc tyre along with an xc wheel up front, flip chip swapped over for the wheel change.

Wheels and tyres very much change the character of the bike. I could have two sets for the G1, but I'm lazy and fortunate to have the space and funds for another bike.

Three important factors with choosing travel IME:

For any given budget, you will probably get a lighter bike with better components with a shorter travel version. If you afford to throw >£5k at a bike, then you can get a big travel (>150mm) bike down to a light weight. If most of your riding is not gravity riding, and you actually pedal places, then trading down in travel is perhaps going to be better overall.

Big travel really just means you can ride faster through stuff. Within reason (ie normal people riding bikes not Rampage style huckin), i can't think of anything i can ride on my 180mm bike that i can't ride on my 150mm bike, it's just i'll be going quicker on the bigger bike. The big bike also allows one to be a bit lazier with line choice and get away with it.

Comfort. My 180mm travel bike can be run with significantly more sag, ie run deeper into it's travel, and that travel can be more linear for longer, because it is less likely to hit the hard end stops. This means my 180mm bike actually rides softer than my 150mm one, because i can run lower rates for springing and damping. On long rocky days out (Peaks, Lakes, north wales etc) that helps keep my feeling fresh and less battered about. Which at my age is a good thing (i'm not actually very old, just really patheically weak, lol!)

Not sure that actually answers the question, but it perhaps gives you something else to consider 🙂

All bikes have their uses, and peoples riding style varies hugely too. Despite the plethora of niches most bikes will do many tasks, even if not ideally suited to it.

I don’t tend to put much stock in people who make claims like:
Dual ply tres and 150mm travel is a must for Peak District bridleways.
Xc hardtails or rigid are ideal for any trail centre.

If you have a bike and like riding it on your chosen terrain, that’s great, if you want a ‘more capable bike’ that’s great too.
Before you get too fixated on travel, get a ruler out and look at the difference between the travel of the bikes you are talking about. IMO geometry and suspension set up make far more of a difference.