[Closed] Slacken my head angle... Should I? Have you? Would you?

I took 2? off the head angle of an RC405 for similar reasons, but also because I'd mostly been riding a Ragley and found it hard to adjust to the sharper steering on the Pace to the point where I kept riding off the edge of the trail through over-steering. I'm happy with the result, quite a big difference with 2?, 1? is still noticable, but not as pronounced. I also had to shorten my stem from 90mm to 70mm to keep steering feeling 'right'.

If you go for a Works Component head-set, it'll only cost you 70 quid and it's reversible in about ten minutes, so if you don't like it, just put it back to standard.

Put a 1 degree Works Components headset on my Soul. To me, it made a huge difference. So much more stable downhill, and a lot more fun for general riding; not that it wasn't fun before, of course!!

I also fitted a 1 degree Works Components headset on my Epiphany got one for Xmas. Make the bike far better. All the crashes I seem to have are tuck-under and off the side of the bike. The bike now seems for more staple put still nice and sharp on the turns. The headset looks to be well made and of a good standard. If you decide you don’t like the new angle you can still use the headset just fit top and bottom unit same way and you get a nice headset.

If you decide you don’t like the new angle you can still use the headset just fit top and bottom unit same way and you get a nice headset.

Really? 😕

Yep really the bearing is off set inside the headset, so the top is fitted with the thin side facing the rider and the bottom fitted with the fat side facing the rider. That makes the fork tube sit at an angle inside the head tube. If you fit the headset with fin end facing the rider top and bottom it just moves the fork tube about 2mm nearer the rider.

Do it. In fact think about going 1.5 or 2 degrees slacker rather than just one.

My 6in bike has a 66 deg HA and I ain't ever going back.

Sounds like it could be a goer! This is what I needed to hear.

Anyone tried the offset shock mounting route?

Paceman I have a pic of the fitting guide would you like me to email it to you. Or check my Facebook page peter rhoades

Peter, if you could send it to me that'd be great thanks, email in profile.

Paceman just done it....

I just bought some offset bushings off of here, they made my shock feel notchy so they weren't even ridden on. I will work out what the problem is when I get a chance.

I haven't on a yeti, but both my main bikes have Works reducers in. Won't neccesarily work for every bike or for every rider but they're both much improved by my tastes.

The shock bushing ones are a bit less clearcut... Not all bikes can use them- some like my Hemlock are too well packaged in the first place, they don't have the clearance. But also, on bikes with anything clever going on with the linkage rates it'll change the starting position, which could have unpredictable effects.

A bit of research is a good thing; My Epiphany is a Mk1 The Mk2 has 1 degree off the head angle. A few magazine reviews also said the heat angle was a bit tight. Take a look at the older Trek Fuel bikes every review comments on the tight head angle so a 1 degree offset would be a good thing. The new fuel ranges have a much slacker head angle so an offset headset would be a waste of money.

Anyone who has done this have any issues with clouting the pedals more often. I'm thinking about doing this with my Mojo, via the eccentric shock bushing route as no-one currently makes a compatible headset, though Works Components are working on it at the moment.

Didn’t notice anything riding today I don’t think 1 degree of the head makes that much or any difference to BB height.

Yep really the bearing is off set inside the headset, so the top is fitted with the thin side facing the rider and the bottom fitted with the fat side facing the rider. That makes the fork tube sit at an angle inside the head tube. If you fit the headset with fin end facing the rider top and bottom it just moves the fork tube about 2mm nearer the rider.

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Won't the bearings be misaligned? I can see that if you reverse both cups, you effectively steepen the head angle by 1? or whatever, but if you reverse one cup, aren't the surfaces that the bearings sit on misaligned. Sorry, I'm probably just [being] a bit thick. 😐

Don't know that one, the sealed bearings are only about 4mm deep so the inside race could be offset somehow. I know they work ok both in the same way because that’s what I did first time I fitted them. Or the bearing may sit at slight angle. Nice pic by the way. The bearings looked flat in the head cups.

Also the head tube size guide has an 8 or 9mm size variance i.e. fits head tube 88mm to 96mm or 97mm to 106mm. It could be that the tolerances don’t need to be that tight.

Also the head cup lower and upper and the sealed bearings are the same and can be used top or bottom... confused

what happens if you align the headsets left.right instead of fore/aft? Does it make you better at taking left hand (or right hand) corners?

575 has a max reduction of 1deg via the works comp headset

setting the cups left thin at the top and left fat at the bottom will off set the fork 1 degree to the right could fill a bit odd.

"575 has a max reduction of 1deg via the works comp headset"

That'll work for me.

The bearings in my Works sets definately sit at an angle btw, I wouldn't reverse them for a zero-change setup... I've no doubt it'll work but I've also no doubt it'll load the bearings up wrongly.

TBH it's not the best sealed headset in the world anyway- acceptable, but non-awesome.

What's the BB height on the 575? Or to put it more usefully, do you think it's low enough already?

Anglesets won't make very much difference to your BB height, but offset bushings will do. I think the Yeti has a low-ish BB anyway (I may be wrong), so I'd say go for the headset option first. 67.5 degrees will make it feel nicer to hammer stuff, even that's slightly outdated by today's standards (my new yeti ASR-5 is 20mm less travel and head angle is 67 degrees).

it'll make your bike more stable at speed but on fast twisty singletrack your bike may feel worse

Longer forks? On my '07 575 I went from 68.5 to 66.9/67ish by putting some 160mm travel forks on it.

Longer forks do the same, but they also make pedalling uphill a bit more wandery. Angleset and eccentric bushings ask drop the BB slightly and steepen the seat angle so making pedalling uphill somewhat easier. Read here [url] http://www.ofanaim.net/geometry.html [/url]

Agree, but the 575 is designed to take 160 forks and it hasn't made it any more wandery. When I first upgraded it I expected that to be the case but I was a bit puzzled that it was not.

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Angle adjust headsets? Snake oil IMO. A rather pointless and trendy accessory.......

Something else to laugh at in 15 years time alongside super-wide bars.

Angle adjust headsets? Snake oil IMO. A rather pointless and trendy accessory.......

Not really, they do what they say on the box, Snake oil is something that purports to do something but doesn't, but anglesets genuinely change the way a bike handles very effectively and if that's what you want to do, it's a good, efficient way of doing it.

Whether you need to or not is a different question altogether. But the actual head-sets do exactly what they claim to do. You grumpy, cynical git... 😉

PeterPoddy - Member

Angle adjust headsets? Snake oil IMO

What absolute nonsense. They do exactly the job they're supposed to.

[url= http://www.welovelapierre.com/lapierre-blog/zesty-314-headset-service/ ]zesty 2010[/url]
Anyone know which one I should use to slacken a 2010 zesty same as this one??? I have emailed works components 4 times now with no response, tempted to just can the idea tbh.

I did offset bushings on my Canyon Nerve AM - I like the handling but I do pedal strike more

I am going to get the Works headset when it's available to slacken another 1.5 and raise the BB back to original

(On the Canyon the Works headset needs an external adaptor cup which raises front end and BB)

My Heckler came with a works 1deg, does feel better than my old heckler (of same vintage).

Angle adjust headsets? Snake oil IMO. A rather pointless and trendy accessory.......

Something else to laugh at in 15 years time alongside super-wide bars.

The oracle has spoken!

My 66degree static head angled, 780mm wide bar'd bike is obviously a fad (despite it being the best riding bike I've ever owned which has had a result in me riding stuff I might not have done before and/or faster than I've done before).

Slack head angles (within reason) + wide bars = ace.
Throw biggish forks and a good pedalling shortish travel bouncey frame into the mix = ace x 2.

I want a 160mm bike with a 64 degree head angle - stock - without a reducer - wonder if anyone makes one

Something else to laugh at in 15 years time alongside super-wide bars.

Except all the fastest guys in the DH scene are using a very forward riding position on steep stuff. What do you need for that? Wide bars, a super slack head angle, a long cockpit and spd's.

Wide bars and slack bikes are no fad. They genuinely work better for downhilling.

I'm taking my bikes HA of 68.5 to 66 (1.5 through headset, 1 through offset bushings).

It is relatively easy to tweak back (eg. I can go back to 67 by taking the offset rear shock hardware off, the BB will go up a few mm's but its low on the Canyon anyway.

Unless I snap the head tube of course, but it looks fairly overbuilt...

I am going to get the Works headset when it's available to slacken another 1.5 and raise the BB back to original

Scaredypants, how did you miss this

"(On the Canyon the Works headset needs an external adaptor cup which raises front end and BB)"

was it there all along ? 😳

I can't imagine that it raises the front more than just to break even allowing for the extra "splay" on the fork though, so I'd expect that it won't compensate for your lower back end due to the bushings

Raises front end approx 9-10mm apparently (prototype, anyway), that should raise BB 4-5mm by my calcs, which I think is about half what my BB dropped?

I don't reckon slack head angles are as important as people seem to think. BB height is more noticeable imo and its the difference between feeling perched on the bike or riding "in" the bike, as much as i hate that expression! I just don't reckon i like super slack bikes anyway, on flatter stuff the steering feels a bit "flip flop" and don't seem to jump as well/be as fun to ride. Though maybe this is more to do with my bmx background, with 75 degree head angles being a standard thing!

PeterPoddy - Member
Angle adjust headsets? Snake oil IMO. A rather pointless and trendy accessory.......

Something else to laugh at in 15 years time alongside super-wide bars

Utter tripe. They're no less valid than any other change to angle or size.

Long top tubes, layback seatposts, short stems - why would these be acceptable preferences, but wide bars and angle adjustments are fashion?

Something else to laugh at in 15 years time alongside super-wide bars.

Wide bars made my 2004 vintage full suss ride even better. It became less snappy, more stable and a whole lot nicer to ride. The ability to have slackened the head angle by a degree would have made it better still.

It's not fashion, it's common sense - where are all those 130mm stemmed bikes now?

IMO do try both the headset and the offset bushes.

As both measures are reversable and fitting the old Headset/Bushes gets you back to the original setup if you don't like the results so there's no real catastrophic issues if it's not right so nowt to loose but a bit of money...

I got some offset bushes for my older DH bike and they have helped make it feel marginally more stable as it slackened the head angle and lowered the BB a tad, its an older frame though so 1-1/8" and hence I think I can only get a -1deg headset for it, I might do it as and when or just hold out and buy a newer frame down the line...

I've tried both, albeit on different bikes. I used the Works headset on a 5 Spot. IMO, made a massive difference to how it rode, made it less twitchy.

But the biggest difference was the bushings on the Zesty. These slackened it by about 1 1/2 degree and dropped the BB a touch. Coupled with a set of 160mm Lyriks it was awesome when I took it to the alps earlier this year. Long and stable at speed I (almost) kept up with my mates on their big bikes. Head angle was about 65.5 I reckon. Trouble is, for everyday riding it's just too slack so I've put my original bushings back in. 67-68 is pretty much the sweetspot for me for everyday trail riding, any slacker then it becomes a bit of a compromise.