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Can STW give me the heads up as to which is better/beeterst/best.... Planning on doing W2 but 150mm hardtail or 34lb AM full suss is the question. I've tried watching some videos of the roughest sections and looks like either or to be honest but the full suss has some very wide DH bars on it ie over 800mm that are difficult threading through trees at some forests. So steer me please oh wise STW.....or p take too, as long as it contains a bit of useful advice 😆
Either.
There's more than 4,000ft of ascent on W2, so if doing that on a full suss will spoil your day, that's worth considering. I did it on a XC HT and never felt I had to back off because of roughness.
Re: Bars - I found my weeny bars catching on vegetation quite a bit, but that was in July last year in the wet, when all the trailside stuff was hanging down. No issues with trees, though it could make their daft gates at the end of each section more annoying.
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last time I did W2 there was just only 700m of ascent....2300ft.
i would take the hardtail based on
a. 34lbs - the descents wont be worth it after the climbs
b. 8km wide bars
but if you are out of practise on the HT....
If you'd said hard tail or lightweight trail/xc F/S I'd have said F/S. But you'd probably have more fun on more of the trail with your hard tail.
8km wide bars!
last time I did W2 there was just only 700m of ascent....2300ft.
Either I took a wrong turn or Strava was having a meltdown that day. Official stat is 975m, so it's still plenty, I guess.
Edit: Looked at my GPS trace more closely, definitely Strava meltdown...
I did it on a HT (Cove HJ) and it was fine. There's nothing there that a HT can't cope with. My Strava record shows the elevation as 4167ft, for what it's worth.
Both will be great.
I normally ride a full sus there and love it, you can really open up on the fast sections.
Did it on a 140mm HT last time out with a fairly pacey group and loved it but it was much more energy sapping.
Bear in mind i ride it steady on the ups and blat the living daylights out of the downs.
Whatever happens you'll have fun.
I did it last year on a 34lb Santa Cruz V10 was god fun on the downs but the long ups where not so fun. Sky line was awful on it but blade and the end decent good fun
This year (next week) I am still FS on a 19.6lb Single Speed Jet 9 carbon which is going to be faster and more fun on the ups and probably as fun on the downs.
What I wasn't really ready for is that a lot of the seemingly down hill trails have random ups and a series of linked downhills, the heavy DH bike was a struggle on the ups sp i realy killed the flow.
One of my mates was on his Single Speed Hardtail and was one of the fastest, was a several other hard tails and a few full sus bikes all had a brilliant time and all coped fine.
Do W2 and Blade and you'll get 4500ft! In fact, do Blade instead of W2... it might only be 24km but it doesn't have 12km of flat linking fire road
I've done it on both, either will be fine. I'll be on a 150mm HT next time.
Every time i took my HT to Afan i managed to destroy something; rims, rear mech, mech hanger, pedals. Still had fun though. Post-deforestation the trail has gotten rougher & I appreciated the FS over my HT on my last visit, but then my FS is substantially lighter than 34lbs & not much heavier than my HT.
I've ridden the Blade on a 26" 140mm hardtail and it was great until the last Blade descent...it was VERY painful lol.
Much better on my carbon Stereo 160 (650B)
Personally for the W2 I'd go HT as there's some long climbs and undulating sections where a big ol' heavy rig might get to be a burden!
I wouldn't ride anywhere but down on anything that weighed 34lbs....
Plus, it's plenty doable on a h/tail esp one with 150 travel at the front....
Thanks STW for all the replies....hardtail it is! It's built burly for such places too..... Plus just shod the full suss with 2.5 Minnion Super Tacky LUST and rear 2.3 LUST High Roller ll so the bije now weighs 35lb having eaten a second set of Schwalbe 2.4 Nobby nics at Antur last weekend! 😆