I'm after a long travel steel hardtail that will take 150-160mm forks, I'm most tempted by the first two on my list but are there any others I should be considering?
Chromag Stylus or TRL/Samurai if the price was right
Transition Trans AM
Dialled Alpine
456
Cotic BFE/Soul
Evil DOC/Faction
Blue Pig
hmmmm
P7
NS Surge
Quite a bit cheaper than most of the others mentioned, but probably as hardcore if not more so than most of them.
Custom.
The test of the "new" Cotic Soul in the Feb WMB reckons that even though Cotic state it's good for 140mm they thought that above 130mm was too much So I definitely don't think you'd want one if you're really looking for 150/160mm. Not my opinion but I feel that they generally know their stuff.
What's your budget?
I like your top 2, not that I've even seen one in the flesh, let alone ridden one. I know a bloke with an NS Surge and he seems to like it. Did the Fort William DH enduro race thing in the summer on it and finished 3rd in hardtail category. He also uses it for 'normal' riding too (whatever normal riding is these days).
Curtis?
Looked at the Chromag Samurai but was about £950ish, is very nice though.
Chain Reaction had some Chromag frames in their sale.
I would suggest that although the 456 can happily take 6" forks, this is at the limit of its recommended use. Personally I would go for something designed for 5-6-7" forks, if you get my drift.
150mm+ is way too much for a Soul
I would recommend an Alpine, must admit they are very good.
not that i'm biased or anything 😉
the TransAM soooo nice. decision made.
A few others to look into there, looks like the Soul is out then, 456 and Blue Pig I'm not overly keen on, as good as the Alpine is my brother has one so I just don't want to have the same bike.
All the custom frames I've looked into seem to be around the wrong side of £1k which is way more than I want to spend, I don't think I could justify spending more than £400-500ish, ideally less.
I think I'm almost set on the Chromag now but might have to look into 2nd hand or importing a frame, I emailed Shorlines on Monday and still havn't had a reply...There's only the large in the CRC sale and Im not sure if I need a medium or large.
My choice given the budget you have would be a BFe, if you don't want an Alpine
BFe is great with 160mm fork as is the Blue Pig.
schrickvr6 - emailed you on the 16th. Sorry for the delay. Had a few technical prob's!
Cheers
John/Shorelines
"The test of the "new" Cotic Soul in the Feb WMB reckons that even though Cotic state it's good for 140mm they thought that above 130mm was too much So I definitely don't think you'd want one if you're really looking for 150/160mm."
Well, you don't want to run 160mm in a Soul anyway, too long for it, that's what the BFe's for. But I've run 140mm in my Soul and it's great... I read that article but tbh i haven't the slightest idea what they were talking about. They sounded like they were trying to get back towards the shorter travel geometry, without ever stopping to think why, going on about running extra sag. the entire point of running 140mm in a Soul is to change the geometry, only an idiot would put a 140mm fork in a bike then try and make it ride like it has a 120mm fork.
Still, they gave it a nice number of stars so I'm mollified, but they really were talking utter pish.