After a few years on full suspension going back to a HT was a bit jarring, I soon readjusted though. I mostly prefer the HT these days, although I do still enjoy a ride on the big bike now and again too.
If you don’t ride bikes with suspension you don’t really get battered at all. If I ride a bike with rear suspension, I notice that the hard tail is less plush but soon aclimatise to hardtails again.
+1
I mainly ride the HT so it's more a case of feeling less beaten up on the FS. But it's more of a feeling of getting to the end of the ride with tired legs rather than tired all over, the same but different.
It’s more important to have a good fork on a HT if you’re going to hit the rough stuff at speed. There’s only so much you can absorb with your legs before the trail starts coming into the bike from the back wheel and unsettling it. Then the fork has to manage the inputs from the front and the back.
-1
I find the more basic fork on the HT works well enough as by the time it's overwhelmed the rear end is too. Throw it into a rock garden and it feels awful for a couple of seconds, then the whole bikes lost momentum anyway.
I think it’s the opposite. Newer trails are built for flow to my mind and I wonder why the need for FS, but that’s in my local knowledge. I still prefer to ride the HT at the Golfie and other Tweed Valley locations, the FS sucks the life out of the trail. And feeling battered afterwards makes the pizza and pint all the more rewarding.
6 / 1/2-Doz
New / recently resurfaced trails are amazing on a HT and the FS just feels redundant or hard work because you have the opportunity to pedal. Those same trails in 12 months time are very different. The FS carries it's speed better and you don't have to pedal to re-accelerate after every slightly rough section. It doesn't take much erosion to tip the balance.
A bit like the comment being replied to said "more natural" trails. One persons natural is soft, smooth and loamy with little traffic, and their man-made is concrete-hard braking bumps. Another's natural is barely rideable rocks and scree, and their man-made is like a BMX track.
For me, it wasn't the most technical terrain that lead me to a full suspension bike, it was the bumpy, pedally grassy hills that made up a lot of my riding at the time. Going downhill you can use your legs for suspension and you consciously ride with better technique (hopefully), but on bumpy flat stuff/climbs you can't always be out of the saddle, and for me that's where I find the biggest benefit of a FS.
IME you do adapt, you go slower, skip over and pick different lines, but some bikes are just harsh. My SC Chameleon was just HARD, as was a Niner Air 9 Carbon. Bigger tyres can only do so much. If it's wearing you down after multiple uninterpreted (by going back to the FS) rides, it may just be too harsh.
No. And just to make sure, I've just put RC31's onmyhardtail for lols.
Yes, the more you do something regularly the better you get. I’ve been back on a HT for the last 3 years and it took a while to get used to it again.
