That "beat up" feeling on the hardtail

I think it depends massively on what kind of riding you're doing. I think winch and plummet style riding on a hardtail isn't too different from a full sus, it's seated pedaling across bumpy terrain where a hardtail is significantly harder work as you can't stay seated the whole time.

I don't know the science. But, riding a HT makes you awesome! 😁

I find that even MTB isn't a great upper body work out anyway, compared to say, tennis for instance.

I certainly identify with that fatigued feeling you get but it also massively depends on your tyres / pressure. It also depends on the frame to but too a much smaller extent IMO.(I don't say frame material either 😂)

I don’t know the science. But, riding a HT makes you awesome! 😁

Damn right on that one. *flexes*

And no, I don't find it a big issue.

I wonder if there's something to do with rider weight. I used to ride ht exclusively and never noticed it. Much lighter friends would complain of they rode ht on the same trails. I recently got a FS and aside from climbing worse and descending faster in rough stuff I don't notice any difference.

Real riders do it rigid.

It's the feeling of being ALIVE... Or more specifically the feeling of being ALIVE and one bike ride closer to death.

We'll do all day (50km/1200m climbing) rides on the HT in the winter. Chunk of that is road. By the end of the day, I'm definitely feeling it in the legs over riding same route on FS. Knees especially and just generally more tired / fatigued. Worth it tho and do love the feeling of the first ride of the FS after 3-4 months on the HT.

Also my BFEmax and quite a few other steel HTs before it are definitely more 'all day' than my Nukeproof Scout. Tht was a fun bike to ride but I always felt more beaten up. Any HT I ride is going to have 2.6 tyres/inserts and therefore run low-ish pressures. I'm sure that helps.

'Train hard, fight easy'.

Ride a hardtail most of the time and it will make you stronger physically and better able to take a beating when you  take the FS to big mountains.  At least, that's my personal view and it works for me and has done for a lot of years.

Ok, I'm a sample size of just 1 but at the age of 59, I can still do big mountain days and ride the hardtail for hours on lumpy terrain.  The longer you carry on working hard on doing something physical, the longer you're able to stay strong and keep doing that something..

I've an autumn Alps trip planned and will be continuing to ride the hardtail on bumpy terrain as much as possible in the build up to going, when I'll be on the FlareMax.  To be fair, I do some upper body weights & core work and I'm convinced that these help with resilience.

I don't think I could go back to a HT, I haven't ridden one since the 90s but can still remember feeling pummeled after a hard ride. Moving to FS was night and day. It's those long unavoidable slogs in the saddle over rough ground that do it. When I lock my rear shock out I'm on a hard tail, both my FS's are under 12kg, why would I go back?

I'd always assumed it's the demands of the extra body english required to make a HT ride nice and flow over the terrain optimally. The lumpier the terrain, the more demanding this becomes, the more you push on, the more demanding this becomes.

Fitness makes one more resilient of course, but as a 50 y.o. still capering about on rockier trails, the cosseting nature of an FS is becoming clearer to me.

I’m curious to know if repeated long-term exposure to hardtail battering makes you stronger and able to go longer and harder in future.

HT riders can definitely go longer and harder simply by being more awesome. Oh, were you talking about riding performance?

'Everyone who has ridden a hardtail over bumpy terrain or for a long ride knows that feeling of being “beaten up” that lasts for days afterwards....
....  I’m curious to know if repeated long-term exposure to hardtail battering makes you stronger and able to go longer and harder in future.'

Days sounds excessive tbh, you probably need to ride more. I suspect there's some sort of muscle damage happening at a micro level that'll be a combination of repetitive movements from having to correct the bike more and impact forces, so you end up with what's effectively some sort of DOMS, as per a gym workout where you're poorly conditioned/deliberately training to cause hypertrophy of the muscles through micro-damage.

In a way, the mechanism doesn't matter as simply riding hardtails more leads to adaptation and less soreness. And as above, if you think hardtails are rough on you, try riding rigid. Peak local here and the most beat up I feel is after off-roading on a cross/gravel bike. Personally I think it's impacts, road bikes on rough roads feel pretty knackering and there's not much body language involved there, just lots of small impacts. But who knows.

there is only one true STW answer, MTFU!

It's what you get used to.

I have mostly used my hardtail for local sub 3h rides and the full suss for anything longer and rocker.

The hardtail leaves me feeling beaten up if I ride it anywhere longer or rockier now.

When I only had a hardtail, that was just what mountain biking was.

If you are out for a big day out on any bike it will be tiring. if it's just normal, it will be normal.

Both types of bike are still fun. Any big day out is fun on either bike 😀

It’s easy, your whole body has to work harder to compensate for not having the rear suspension. So your legs are doing a lot more work (obviously), but also your upper body is having to move around over the rough stuff as well. Your core is having to work a lot harder on the hardtail.

There’s no sitting down on longer descents and just letting the rear suspension do the work for you while your body rests (it wasn’t until I switched back to a hardtail that I realised how often people, including myself, do this).

But over time and with lots of regular riding your body adapts and that beaten up feeling reduces. It also helps to have a very strong core and upper body as well as good aerobic capacity.

Long time hardtail fan and didn’t own a full suspension bike for a long time.

This year though I’ve pretty much stopped riding hardtails for the reasons you described in your first post. 90% of my riding is bike park stuff, and the hardtail was just leaving me sore all over afterwards, especially when riding the rockier places.

Not the soreness you get after a good weights session or circuits, more just a feeling like you’d been put through a spin cycle on a tumble dryer. I’ll always have one hardtail, but even the trail bike will be full suspension now.

More vibration = more workout. Witness the vibration training gyms. A hardtail has a lovely “purity” and is always tempting but old ankles and knees suggest otherwise. FS can be so well controlled these days it’s hard to resist.

I rode hardtails regularly from 1990 to 2018 when I bought my first FS, so from age 21 to 49. Can't say I really noticed being 'beat up', but there again I wouldn't have known any different.

During that time though I was always a regular swimmer, did regular PT training and started yoga in 2010 so I've always had good upper body strength and a good strength to weight ratio.  Most of my xc rides these days are on an FS but I still take the hardtail out once in a while, i still don't really notice that much difference afterwards - saying that except my last ride on it, which was a 25mile mud slog about a month ago back in the middle of Feb. That knackered me out and I was glad to get home tbh, but I put that down to the ground conditions though rather than the bike.

What i do notice these days is that singlespeed on the road gives me a good upper body workout, probably more so than an xc ride on the hardtail.

I rode hardtails regularly from 1990 to 2018 when I bought my first FS, so from age 21 to 49.

Wow, it really did mess with your mathematics 😂

It also depends on the frame to but too a much smaller extent

I got rid of my SC Chameleon, which was stiffer than a porn star after a Viagra overdose, after a full days riding left me feeling like I'd done 12 rounds with Tyson. I remember thinking 'I'm too old for this shit'. A succession of much more compliant steel hardtail frames have followed, more suitable for my aging, aching limbs

Wow, it really did mess with your mathematics 😂

2018-1990 = 28
21 + 28 = 49

checks out to me? After all, 1990 was 34 years ago.

oh god.

Tyre choice is a factor too. A 5" tyre at 6 psi will beat you up a lot less than a 2.1" tyre at 30 psi.

Real riders do it rigid.

It’s the feeling of being ALIVE… Or more specifically the feeling of being ALIVE and one bike ride closer to death.

Singlespeed. For 24 hours. If we're willy waving...

A 5″ tyre at 6 psi will beat you up a lot less than a 2.1″ tyre at 30 psi

I run my 2.2s at 35 psi on my hardtail, I don't  like riding with flat tyres. I'll take a bit of air out if it's muddy & slippery but will still be around 30psi.

I'm still on the hardtail more often than not. With my work I get the chance to try a fair bit of different kit... and for me forks and fork set up are key to how "beaten up" I end up. Even more so than rear tyre sizes etc.

Twice I have babbled in full sus bicycles and moved back to a hardtail/rigid quite soon. SC Superlight & Starling Murmur.

I convinced myself that they would be a bit more comfy and would enable me to ride for longer........it does but I never feel truly satisfied as I feel I've cheated myself somehow.

I think I don't like the disconnect that I feel a  full sus gives on the trail compared to a hardtail/rigid bike🤔 Must be a glutton for punishment😁

I moved back to riding a hardtail just as the new year began. After two crashes in the first two outings, I'm just about getting used to it and enjoying it. I have a new fork waiting to go on as the current fork (X fusion something or other) is not very plush (I'm used to Pikes), I'm hoping a new set of Revs will improve the ride (They seem quite a lot plusher in comparison) and relieve the shoulder soreness on all day rides.

Anyway, I need/want to be out riding more often but have some work to do around the house which is limiting the time that I can dedicate to riding my bike. Once I get that sorted, I have a Bird AM9 frame at the back of the garage which I need to finish building. That will get used on the weekend away trips, need to get my finger out as they are getting closer.

I think if you don't ride a full suspension bike you don't really feel beat up. The only time I got beat up was riding my Spot single speed in a solo 24 hr race. It was only my fore arms which were painful but I was using rigid forks.

Just embrace the hard tail and leave the full suspension bike to the spiders

I got rid of my SC Chameleon, which was stiffer than a porn star after a Viagra overdose, after a full days riding left me feeling like I’d done 12 rounds with Tyson. I remember thinking ‘I’m too old for this shit’. A succession of much more compliant steel hardtail frames have followed, more suitable for my aging, aching limbs

Sure, yet very few steel hardtails are more compliant than a Big Al for instance (but quite a few are less compliant) yet they're all heavier and rarely handle as well.

Tyre choice and pressure are where compliance is mostly, which is hardly a surprise when you look at how much more easily rubber and air deform compared to metal, any metal, including Ti.

I find large volume tyres and a lower pressures help a lot. The only exception is anything with drops, even trying to land as gently as I can, my knees and ankles don't thank me.

When I was 19 I would feel beaten up after a day out on my rigid rockhopper. I'm riding exactly the same places now at 58 and don't have the same issue.  3" 27.5 tyres more than compensate over 1.5" 26 tyres for 40 years of ageing 😊

That will get used on the weekend away trips, need to get my finger out as they are getting closer.

Yes, you do asbrooks 😉

@Hyper_Real I know exactly the feeling you're talking about, and it's the reason I went back to a shortish travel FS as my primary MTB.
Most of my riding is on trails in woodland, which means constant trail chatter both up and down hill. While the riding on the HT is fun, I definitely noticed the additional fatigue that came in the hours/days afterwards. Personally I wouldn't say I found any improvement in fitness during the year I mostly rode the HT. If anything my strength may have decreased, as I was much less likely to do weight training the day following a ride, than following a ride on the FS.
YRMV.

I recently got a FS and aside from climbing worse and descending faster in rough stuff I don’t notice any difference.

‘Train hard, fight easy’.

Ride a hardtail most of the time and it will make you stronger physically and better able to take a beating when you take the FS to big mountains.

+1 each

I think there's two types of people, those that ride HT's and FS's at the same pace and find the FS 'easy'. And people who put the same effort into both and find the FS is faster, but just as hard.

I don't find HT's that bad, but then I've always ridden them, or rigid bikes. And FS ownership is an occasional blip and usually saved for 'special occasions' riding rather than the local stuff / night rides. And conversely if I felt like a ride wasn't quite 'over' in terms of being beaten up and knackered, there's always someone in the group willing to ride up for one more run.

Tyre choice and pressure are where compliance is mostly, which is hardly a surprise when you look at how much more easily rubber and air deform compared to metal, any metal, including Ti.

This gets aid a lot, and while true, doesn't account for the fact that fat bikes can still feel pretty unforgiving, and that frames really will deflect quite a lot, just look for the tyre rub marks on the inside of the chainstays etc.

A while back I swapped from a Singular Swift to a Salsa El-Mariachi. The Salsa was uncomfortably stiffer. Then to a Charge Cooker which was as nice as the Swift but 1/5th the price. All were with the same build.

I went through a period of using strava locally on trails I've ridden hundreds of times.

I'd set a time (on the downhills) using the full suss and then try to match it on the hardtail. When I did I'd take the full suss out again, obliterate the time and repeat.

I'd have to work way harder on the hardtail to match that time, but it also made me better on the full suss.

I think a full suss bike lets you get away with mistakes while the hardtail punishes them.

None of this really answers the question but I would say that my knees would definitely feel it after riding the hardtail.

I’ve always ridden hardtails, I’ve had full sus bikes until a few years ago, but always had a hardcore HT or jump bike for razzing around as well. Having ridden both at the Megavalanche and PDS I can tell you I’m much faster on the FS and for longer. Not sure I’d race the Mega on a HT again

Riding a hardtail makes you a smoother rider so should help alleviate some of the soreness from the bumps long term. Another point the op has mentioned, being more active out of the saddle definitely is like a work out in it self, kind of like holding a pose in yoga.

But, you do take longer to recover riding a hardtail which is ok if you only ride a couple times a week but not if you ride dailly.

It is quite refreshing to read a good old thread about comparing hardtails to full sus bikes instead of the usual threads on ebikes.

It's my calfs that take the worst battering on the hardtail, next it's my thighs, third it's my feet. I'm getting to old to ride a hardtail these days, yet I was thinking the other day of selling my only full sus and buying another hardtail 🤦🏻‍♂️

I chop and change a fair bit. Takes a ride or so to fully find my flow on a hardtail, unlearn the bad habits from the full suss. I then don’t feel ‘beaten up’.
I ride a rigid forked bike locally, but my thumbs can’t take too much of that on anything challenging. I did enjoy a days uplift at 417 on the rigid bike, but it was very muddy and I was still in my forties.

Also works the other way when I go back to the full suss, takes a while to get used to the extra grip and forgiveness.

It’s my calfs that take the worst battering on the hardtail, next it’s my thighs, third it’s my feet.

That's interesting... For some reason* I never ever get any pain in my calves  from cycling. Quads can be tired, but just dull aching.

*maybe inflexible ankle joints

I ride flat pedals mostly so maybe this makes it worse for the calves, dropped heels and all that.

For me the biggest killer is if I get tired and sit on chattery flat trails as I’m too knackered to stand and pedal.
That is absolutely horrible.