I would love to see more footage of people really pushing modern rigid bikes. There are a few videos along the "rigid-bike-on-EWS-course" lines, but always comparing a modern enduro bike to a something like a 25 year old, base model GT.
Bedmaker - this is what I'm talking about! big reach, 63 ha, short fork with 100mm offset, would love to have a go.
Loads of people posting pics of bikes designed for off the shelf suspension forks / conventional rigid forks - thats not what I'm looking for. Equally I have a 1995 Orange P7 with F7 rigid forks, 2" tyres and a 120mm stem, thats definitely not what I'm after....
Bedmaker's bike would be awful with an off the peg fork, the bike has been designed from the ground up to be rigid with the frame and fork as a system.
Systems thinking without the constraints of convention or off the peg parts!
Well it seems Jones is the pioneer of what I'm talking about, theres just not many others and I'm surprised!
I really loved my Jones. It was my only mountainbike for 2 years.
but I sold it with the intention of building something better.
I loved the body position with those bars and the weight balance between the wheels. It made it the perfect mile-muncher. And the feel of the truss fork was awesome.
It was utterly terrible in rock gardens and landing big jumps at speed though. It just got in trouble way too easily. I think it was the relatively short mechanical trail.
Maybe I'll get around to making a better one someday.
I have a stooge mark 4 and a gen 1 cotic flare max.
The cotic is a great bike and I really like it but the stooge handles better. It's more fun and surprisingly confidence inspiring on steep stuff. The trail has to get quite rough for the cotic to be faster.
I think everyone should try a progressive rigid bike, it's an eye opener.
Bedmaker’s bike would be awful with an off the peg fork, the bike has been designed from the ground up to be rigid with the frame and fork as a system.
Yes.
I tried it with a couple of off the shelf forks with 50mm offset give or take a few mm.
It was horrible. That's why I can't fathom the PVD bike at the top. It will work great in some specific scenarios no doubt, but will feel horrible a lot of the time too.
I think everyone should try a progressive rigid bike
Most definitely.
Was like that on my Krampus, and even more so on my Stooge Mk4.
It does, however, occasionally lure you into trying to cash cheques you can't afford.
The other day I turned blythly down a steep, rooty trail that I'd normally tackle on my DMR Trailstar with dual-ply tyres and 160 forks. I survived, but nearly shat myself in the process!
'But a year later I did go see the main man at stooge for a spin on a speedball and tbh wasnt sold, but he let me have a quick spin on the stooge 3 27.5plus and it was bloody lovely feeling, if I get chance to buy one of those it would probably be the only thing that might replace my ramin, or more likely sit next to it lol'
I run my mk3 B+ with a carbon fork. Same rake but 15mm longer. Its incredibly light and stiff/precise.
Starting to think I'm on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.
Currently riding a dirty Harry with a short (none geometry correct) it feels like a big bmx at times.
Only time I was out of bike was going down potato alley, picking my way through the rocks.
Still love a blast on my rigid Inbred singlespeed from 2005, stock except for a nice fat tyre on the front. As bigdean says, like a massive bmx.
Loved the Waltworks-v2 article, thanks for sharing it. If I win the lottery..........
It's a good article, though he does stress that it's a very personal build, squarely aimed at NS riding, similar to PVD's Spitfire.
If I had the cash, I'd plump more for the Waltworks, but also, at the other extreme, I'd like to try something like a 29er that was taller and shorter than the current norm. I've had it in my head for a while, similar to Pompino geometry, taller headtube, good clearance and upright position for coastal exploring.
bigdean
Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.
You're not. 🙂
It all depends what you want to use it for.
Coastal exploring / pump track / undulating xc have very different needs to a bike for riding up and down mountains and the steep stuff.
Coastal exploring / pump track / undulating xc have very different needs to a bike for riding up and down mountains and the steep stuff.
As long as you don't need a fairly extreme geometry like bedmaker's that'll help with the fast choppy stuff, you can have all of that imo. Steep slo-mo tech geometry can also be good on a pumptrack esp if the bike's rigid and a bike that does both of those things is great for more sedate rides. (I've ridden a Jones on the Geneva-Nice GR5 and other similarly big/techy trails and a Ramin rigid in Nepal, for ref - though Nepal was ~90% hike a bike)
squarely aimed at NS riding, similar to PVD’s Spitfire.
NS = North Shore?
PVD talks a good game fo'shure and doubtless he has some pretty good ideas, but if you look at the sort of riding he's actually doing on those bikes (as opposed to the riding he talks about doing) it's pretty tame.
Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.
No, I still prefer something that feels quite agile rather than very stable. Very subjective stuff though. I think of a rigid mtn bike as something that needs to react fast through the flowy singletrack first and foremost, like a gravel bike needs to still feel good on tarmac rather than be too mtb-like, or a FS bike needs to feel stable at speed over rough ground. Bikes that play to the main strengths of their format. Fun to be had in mixing all that up.. but I come back to a round pegs in round holes sort of thing with my own bikes.
NS = North Shore?
PVD talks a good game fo’shure and doubtless he has some pretty good ideas, but if you look at the sort of riding he’s actually doing on those bikes (as opposed to the riding he talks about doing) it’s pretty tame.
yeah ns= vancouver north shore. Thats basically winch and plummet territory, fire road ups and mad steep rocky tech down with a few novel features like teeter totters (see saws), roller coasters and log rides. Great fun but not got much of the in between undulating stuff that UK riding has.
I'm fairly surprised to see a rigid bike built for this terrain... some of the trails he talks about are pretty extreme and I'll admit to walking bits of them on a Giant Reign when I went.....although I had no time to session things which seems to be what they do.
PVD seems to ride the bay area, mostly sanitised flow trails like Tamarancho and china camp and mtb limited to very hard won trails that are not particularly extreme. Sure he probably knows all the off piste but in that area you can actually get in pretty bad trouble with the police for riding unauthorised trails. So again not exactly like UK natural riding, more like trial centre stuff, but perhaps well suited to a sorted rigid bike.
Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.
Currently riding a dirty Harry with a short (none geometry correct) it feels like a big bmx at times.
Only time I was out of bike was going down potato alley, picking my way through the rocks.
Not saying it's not fun, horses for courses and all that.
Have you tried something longish with a short fork, high offset and slack head? Its like it shouldn't work but it does seem to. Not had my stooge mk4 long (days) but had a Mk2 before it (different kettle of fish, more like a big bmx).
Seems the only options are a Jones LWB or a Stooge Mk4. No one else is doing it except custom jobs!
I hear there is just one Stooge Mk4 left in stock.....the next batch of stooges sound a little less extreme in the ha and fork offset.
Does anyone know if the new stooge is same geo as mk3 with braze ons or is there more to it than that?
It's slacker and longer than the Mk3, and the fork has much more offset than previous versions.
Info on the different versions:
a-short-history-of-steel-stooge-framesets-and-everything-in-between
From the Stooge site:
The Dirtbomb had already been created to test this geometry and it was instantly evident that this was like nothing i’d ridden before, in the best possible way. A 66 degree head angle isn’t particularly slack in this day and age, people are running around with 62 and 63, but a quick look in the right places and you’ll see that some of these bikes are sporting a lot of wheel flop, which is a negative in my book. The slack head angle on the MK4 is designed to get the rider’s weight further behind the front axle. I’ve touched on this loads, so won’t waffle any more about it here. The 80mm offset serves a number of purposes – its keeps the trail figure relatively low so the steering is still superlight and superquick (important on a rigid bike, honest) and virtually eliminates wheelflop, so it has none of that weaving feeling that so many progressive bikes sport when all you want to do is navigate a slow, techy trail.
The result is a bike that absolutely rips, you can throw it down rocky trails and dart between the obstacles at silly speeds, the forks legs also remove a huge amount of trail chatter but on the same note have very little brake flutter due to the angle of the curve. Worth mentioning also is that when you’re up to proper speeds this set up carves perfectly, there’s no understeer or oversteer, it just goes where you want it. Of course, a number of people have already commented that, ‘but my (enter name of high end full-suzzer) handles great with superslack head angle and 44mm offset forks’, and yes, I’ve no doubt about this being true for those riders, but this is a rigid bike that intrinsically has very different needs when it comes to handling and the way its ridden and navigated.The question that many of you might be asking is of course, How does it compare to the earlier ones, the MK1 thru 3? Well, its 28mm longer in the top tube, so there’s a lot more room for fore and aft movement in the cockpit, but in short its faster and more stable. The front wheel is quite a way out, and coupled with the springy fork you can let it go on the descents, and certainly, the faster it goes the more capable it feels. The front end geometry is designed around a 29+ front tyre, but the steering is designed to feel like a MK3 with a 27.5+ front tyre in terms and steering response. It’s early days and i’m still learning this bike, but i’d say i’m already riding substantially faster through the rough stuff on this. A lot of people wrongly assume the front will feel really sluggish but the opposite is true, there’s zero delay on the handling and the speed that it can change direction is definitely one of its plus points.
Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid
I still prefer steep head angle. The bike I ride off road has 74 degree head tube with 38mm rake fork.
It’s slacker and longer than the Mk3, and the fork has much more offset than previous versions.
Info on the different versions:
a-short-history-of-steel-stooge-framesets-and-everything-in-between
Sorry I meant to say the new stooge scrambler which is the next one to be released in September I think. Is that a mk 3 with more braze ons and a new handlebar?
Sorry I meant to say the new stooge scrambler which is the next one to be released in September I think. Is that a mk 3 with more braze ons and a new handlebar?
Oooh, that sounds exciting, where did you hear about that?
That does indeed sound interesting
PVD talks a good game fo’shure and doubtless he has some pretty good ideas, but if you look at the sort of riding he’s actually doing on those bikes (as opposed to the riding he talks about doing) it’s pretty tame.
S'funny, but that's what I'd always suspected. I dread to think how much money he's wasted invested in his stuff.
Hey, it's a hobby for him, sounds like he has a good job to pay for it. He has made bikes that suit him well and the quality of the workmanship of the bikes is second to none! Probably cheaper than owning a porsche in the end.
Without people willing to experiment we'd all still be riding road geo with 130mm stems.
To my eyes the scrambler pegs the geo experiment back slightly to make the ultimate all day all trails / bike packing rig.
Still has a specific fork offset and length tuned to the head angle which is the biggest feature of a unique fork. Along with a specific bar.
Thing I see about stooges is they are all different and each will be suited for different uses by different sizes and styles of rider. Each new one is not necessarily "an improvement" it just pushes in a slightly different direction. Just a shame they aren't all available at once to ride back to back...maybe there will be a meet up / swap shop someday.
I like the sound of a stooge meet up/swap shop!
I will be riding my Stooge Speedball tommorow. I know I will love it. That bike has something special in it. I can't explain it- it's magic.
Did a 78km ride on my MK4 today. The perfect bike for bimbling over hill and dale. Even got a couple of Koms.
Stooge meet up is a cool idea- even cooler though would be a rigid only downhill open ..
even cooler though would be a rigid only downhill open ..
Charlie the bikemonger used to run one in Porlock. A run what you brung, rigid only, klunker/BMX/retro, mass start downhill race.
Excellently chaotic!
