Riding at Ambergate on saturday and i found that either me or my bike was completely crap at going uphill! Having done trail centres (Dalby, Coed-y-Brenin, Cannock etc) I found the bike to be brilliant at everything. For some reason at Ambergate, the uphills felt like the front of the bike was too high! I was thinking perhaps there was too much sag at the rear and/or too little at the front.
It could also be that i'm so unused to steep climbing that my technique is poor! Pretty sure that the bike is fine (Whyte E120) could it be too small for me? It is a small (17.5 inch BB to top of seat tube) and i am 5'10" but it has good reach (it measures the same as my 18" Kona). The medium is about 13mm longer in effective top tube. I use an inline Thompson post and a 100mm Thompson stem.
Anyone else had similar experiences? at the moment it's really making me reconsider things!
Perhaps i should just ride more???
so are the ambergate hills steeper?
unless you have seriously changed your bike, its mostly down to technique, you have been getting away with it at trail centres.
If you mean the front end was lifting while climbing it is YOU that's lifting it.
Trail centre climbs aren't very steep in general, but the climbs around Ambergate are, so you just need to change technique. Drop your elbows and move your hips and shoulders forward.
Struggling on the climbs is par for the course - I regularly do despite being of a reasonable standard of fitness. It could be many things, you could be recovering from a viral infection, you could be nursing a minor hangover or you could simply be running too much rear sag in the shock, pitching the bike backwards.
FWIW my hardtail climbs like an absolute demon compared with either of my full sussers and improves noticably better still if I crank the fork down to 110mm travel. The quad link on your Whyte is a very nice suspension system but I find the spitty traction can make technical climbing more of a chore than it should be (I run an '09 Wolf Ridge) so careful setup of the rear shock is essential.
Otherwise there is always the option of going spinning twice a week - you'll be able to climb anything after a few weeks of this 😉
Its not about the bike
PJM1974- Strange that, it's what the guy i was riding with said-go spinning! i reckon i have been getting away with it TBH. I've increased the sag on the front to about 25% and decreased it on the rear in an effort to counter it, but i'm leaning toward technique failure!
My previous bike was a Kona King Kikapu 2002, and that had a distinctly more XC feel to it (it was a 19" frame and felt too big!)but i'd started to question the size of the Whyte on saturday.
Cheers Pieface-that's what i was worried about!
You may need to slide forward onto the nose of the saddle too.
There are a lot of subtle techniques to help with climbing that you will only learn by playing about, its alot about a comprommise of balance and weight distribution to maintain traction (back wheel)and line choice (front wheel).
With the right skills and fitness a good climber will be a good climber whatever they're riding on.
There are some simple changes you can make to bike set up that mean certain things just happen (e.g. moving saddle back and forth) but most of this can be taken account of with body position and practise.
It was really muddy and i was trying to trade off rear traction or lifting the front! I think even in the dry it would have been quite a challenge for me to get up some of the climbs. I'm going to have to go back to conquer them or i'll give up altogether!
thumbs over the grips and elbows down seems to reduce the chances of wheelie-ing. I sometimes struggle to keep my front end down on climbs as I'm on a bullit which has a horribly slack seat angle, but the above technique helps.
Might be worth playing around with the order of spacers above / below the stem or even stems of different lengths but ultimately body position will always need changing in relation to conditions.
Yes, i faffed with the spacers mid-ride and it did help. I guess my skill compensator wasn't working properly 😉