Just watched the Mojo Trail Diaries in Midweek Movies and they were in Morocco...Fabian was in the films and Mark Weir from the US...Mark looked fairly tall but how tall is Fabian?
Out of the bikes being ridden, they both appeared to be very large looking...is it because they are sized to fit them rather than the marketing hype to ride as small a bike as you can? They just looked slightly odd compared to the other bikes.
Riding skill was superb though so clearly the size of the bike means nothing if you have the ability, but it just struck me as slightly odd looking as I'm expecting to see tiny frames for any kind of MTBing these days...
I can't see the vid just now but would Fabian Barel not be on a forward geometry mondraker? So will have a longer front triangle than normal.
I think the stability provided by a properly sized frame is more important in epic days on mountains than the chuckability of a smaller frame. They are very strong and fit guys and have skills to match so don't need the skills-compensatory value of a small framed bike!
It does long very long but also very tall...the Jekyll (I think) that Mark Weir riding looks similar...I know the saddles are dropped so they don't look like 'normal' rigs but they do look massive...like 20" or 21" frames...pretty sure both are 26" wheeled as well as the wheels look very small.