For what you’re doing, you’d have more fun on a lighter 140mm bike. 160mm is fine if you were riding the really big stuff in the Lakes all the time, but for most of your riding something lighter will be faster down as well as up.

Oreet im from westhoughton and ride all the places you listed I’ve Just sold my Ragley mmmbop and built up a heckler running 2×10 gearing and fox 36 160mm talas forks, I wind them down to 130mm for climbing but generally ride them at 160mm.
That kind of bike is great for pretty much anything, i can go out and ride 40-50mile on it, nail the decents, the jumps, the drops and then bomb it home on the road!

Depends entirely on the bike- some 160mm bikes do feel pretty pointless on simple terrain, not to mention heavy and splodgy. Good ones don’t.

I only have 1 bike (an ibis mojo HD), and it has 160mm travel, I ride the same places as your list, and I never ever find myself thinking I wish I had less travel. I love having a big’ish bike , it makes everything more fun IMO.

Prior to the ibis I had a specialised enduro with 150mm travel which was heavier than the mojo, but I still never found myself thinking I wish I had less travel.

i think 160mm is the sweet spot for the person who only has 1 bike, it will let you ride anything in the UK and abroad.

Ultimately its a personal choice though, and loads of people will disagree with my opinion.

For the trails you mention then you certainly don’t ‘need’ 160. I’ve ridden those places on a HT and 140 and 160 and all the 160 does it make it easier and faster, but not more necessarily fun (in my book).

If you want something to take to the Alps then the 160 thing has its merits, but for the UK places you mention 160 just flattens everything. I recently tested a SB66 in the Lakes. Good bike but the descents were a piece of cake on it. You didn’t need to think about lines or anything, just point it down the hill. If that’s what you want then go for it.

Such a load of nonsense. You don’t have to pick your lines on any bike but we do because you go faster that way and it’s safer.

So all this tosh about not having to pick your lines on a 160mm is just that. Tosh. You can still pick your lines and be faster still. But most people don’t want to go faster. They are already going fast enough which is why they don’t want/need a longer travel bike. Go faster and the longer travel makes sense. Ride the same speed as you do a 140mm bike and it won’t.

Today, I took my 6 pack with fox 36 van forks from a mates house, around Sherwood pines and back again. I had fun. Therefore, I don’t think 160 is too much. Having said that, I came rattling down fluffy kitten on a 140 ht the week before. I had fun with that as well so a ht is in no way lacking.

No it wasn’t Garburn, it was just down into Kentmere. On the HT you do need to pick your line and read the terrain. On the Yeti you didn’t. Like I said, it just laughed at it. It was quite impressive really, in a way. Garburn would be more of a test for it I admit, and you could find the limits more easily for sure.

And the downhill comment is what Jeremy, some sort of argument? People ride whatever floats their boat. I’m happy with that. For some people it’s the speed of the descent that generates the most intensity of feeling. For others it’s how close they are to the limit that matters. There’s no single recipe for this.

i’ve got a big 160mm fs bike. It was great fun to ride and gave me lots of confidence, but it did make the rides a bit dull. The climbs were hard work due to the weight and tyre choice. The descents were fun but it did feel remote from the ground. Perhaps that’s due to the suspension design.

I’m now riding a cotic bfe. 140mm up front and large volume tyres. I’d forgotten what it was like to be riding on the edge of control. It felt fantastic.

IME, FS is faster, but the BFE is more fun when I’m riding in UK.

I had an early Hemlock which I tried with both 160 & 100 at the rear but always 160 up front. I found 100 was enough at the back. Great climber and fun downhill but a little flexy.

I then built up an 09 Wolf Ridge with the same kit. 140 at the back/ 140 up front. Horrible, draggy thing uphill, ok going down.

That didn’t last long.

I now have a Mega with the same kit. It climbs better than the Hemlock and feels really, really confidence inspiring everywhere. With the propedal on it rides like a shorter travel bike with lots in reserve 🙂

All these bikes had very similar headangles and reasonably low BB’s. I’d agree that as travel goes up the shock becomes more important. I think that maybe the RP23 on the Marin was a bad example.

I think 160 is perfect if you want a bike you can do owt on, especially of you need all the help you can get 🙂

not sure why an extra 10 or 20mm of travel suddenly makes a trail sterile and flat. As in, it doesnt.

I ride a 160mm bike, and a hefter at that (alpine 160). It is the best bike Ive owned as it great to ride on ANY trail. I ride the chilterns with mates and we have the full range from rigid 29er singlespeed to bikes like mine, we all enjoy riding and I come home from the chilterns with a grin, not thinking Ive had a bland ride. The bikes comes into its own on the big stuff but is fun all the time. Win Win.

This is my bike in “appropriate” environment (2hrs of this stuff on the Top Station descent, Kerala India for my 40th). The equally pertinent point is that to get to this trail we had to do a 40km road climb. I got to the top first and enjoyed every minute of it. If the bike isnt too heavy *ahem* and climbs well, where is the downside?

Wonder if Scott have sold many Genius LTs?

I have owned two 160 bikes – a Commencal Meta 6 and a Specialized Enduro SL (150/160) and they are both really different. Previously I had owned FS bikes from 1999 – a Stumpjumper FSR (80mm) and a Trek Liquid (120mm)- prior to those I had HT bikes.

I definitely find the 160 bikes more fun for the way I ride, but there have obviously been other developments in technology, not just an increase in travel. The most interesting comparison is between the two 160 bikes – the specialized is MUCH better climber in my opinion and is a lot lighter than the Commencal. The geo is pretty different with a longer TT and steeper seat tube helping on the ups. I probably prefer it on the downs too although it takes a bit more thought on some steeper stuff.

I guess what I’m saying, there is way more to consider than the travel on the bike and many other factors will have as big, if not a bigger, influence on how the bike rides. I’ve settled toward the trail bike end of 160 in terms of geo and weight.

Yes, 160mm of travel lets you go faster.

If you are a decent rider you will go faster on a hardtail than someone on a 160mm travel bike who cant ride properly.

Its the rider thats “gonna be able to do everything,” not the bike.

160mm of travel seems unnecessary for the types of terrain you’re describing.

You can use any sort of mountain bike in the Alps, they even let me ride my hardtail over there. But, if you want to hammer the downhill tracks then a downhill bike is best, anything else is just a compromise, whether its a hardtail or a 160mm travel trail bike – you’ll still get battered by the braking bumps. But all the xc/less well known trails are fine on a short travel bike.

I find 160mm enough for me when it comes to DH/freeride in the UK, as in the bike certainly is not the limiting factor, i am.

When i’m trail riding, on the flat bits and sometimes the up, i like to be able to attain instant acceleration to hit any obstacles i deem interesting on the way. I find 160mm bikes lack the acceleration i want and am much preferring the acceleration of a hardtail in these situations. So long rides where a lot of the time you need to make your own fun, i definitely prefer the hardtail.

I find a 160mm bike also makes trail centres pretty uninteresting.

Also which bike i prefer depends on the crowd/location im riding. If im doing is a peak bimble, and the only taxing stuff involves riding down gravel roads (people argue with this definition), the 160mm bike is wasted. If i’m going out with a different crowd, and we’re making a loop out of DH tracks, then i prefer my 160mm bike.

In the alps, i would certainly say a 160 bike is more than capable of 99% of what the alps has to offer just the same is in the uk.

I guess what i’m really trying to say is a 160 bike is really a DH bike you can pedal, so needs to be used in such a way to make it interesting.

FIFY

100mm is the new 160mm…

😯

I’m a big fan of having longer travel at the front than the rear, you see I found even my Heckler5 had too much rear travel… BUT, I’ve ridden other bikes since I sold on the Heckler, with the same or more travel, that felt much more involving, and far less “delayed” in their feedback. It could well be that geom, sus design, and sus setup could be far more important than “the amount” of travel front and rear, yes? For now I’ll stick with 150mm up front, 110mm rear. My mind is open to longer travel frames though, modern bikes have moved on from the sofas of old…

I find 160mm far too much for the UK so I left…

I rode round trail centers loads and it was so boring I kept doing it and it was so boring it made me happy.

I also ride them on my 150/160mm HT and thats fun too.

It’s mountain biking it’s all fun