I’ve had my 2016 Stumpy 29er for nearly 5 years now. I’ve had more time in the the lockdown boredom to read more mtb mags and reviews, most of which seem to focus on reach, HA and STA. I decided to find the geometry chart for my XL frame (which I wasn’t particularly interested in 5 years ago, I simply liked it and bought it) just to see how it compares with the new school bikes. It seems my bike is about 2 inches short in reach, and 2 to 3 degrees out for the HA and STA. It got my wondering, how much this would make my bike better? I’m already really comfortable on it after years of fettling and tweaking and have never felt it holds back me as a ‘weekend warrior’ type rider (its done BPW, Lakes, Peaks, and currently is being used to plough around the lockdowned flatlands of Doncaster).

So my questions:

Has anyone tried both and found new school geo and preferred their older bikes?

At what point do people think the new school changes will become too much (i.e that Grim Donut thing!?)

I can’t afford a new frame with modern geometry anyway at the moment – have a new baby on the way – so this is more out of interest than anything, just wondered what real world experience of geo was after all these mtb articles I’ve been reading!

As long as you stick with that bike, you’ll be fine. My mistake was buying a “newer” geometry hardtail, riding that for months, then jumping on my old Blur. It felt crap. 26″ wheels, steep head angle, hooked up on everything. I eventually sold it and bought an Occam.

Having said that I recently Singlespeeded an old 26″ hardtail and fitted some rigid forks. It’s now great for the rides that I choose to do with it but I can appreciate I want something slacker as soon as it gets technical at all.

I am – until I get on my more modern hardtail and realise what a difference it genuinely makes.

Sorry what? 2016 is ‘older’?

The big change in bikes happens in earlier 2010s I think, then it levels out, when 29 inch wheel geo got sorted out. After that it’s smaller changes.

My ‘modern’ bike is 2013 and it’s great. But I’m not a luddite – it’s vasty incredibly better than the bike that preceeded it, which was 2007. The development in the last 7 years is nothing like as much as the development in the 7 years that preceeded them. However, I’m talking about XC bikes not traildurognar

Still enjoying my Patriot though (2007) in its slackest setting, however if I were to ride a modern Enduro bike I might see a similar difference.

Yep, Bronson CC V2 is 3 years old this month, still best all round bike I’ve ever rode. 😊

What he said.

Having now tried long, low, expensive and heavy, my old Rock Lobster feels very old fashioned.

It’s still fun, but much harder work on the rough stuff than it needs to be.

I’ll be treating myself to something new after this has all gone away. Heart says Cotic, wallet says Whyte.

Ideally, I’d like sonething with the weight of the Rock Lobster but with 29 wheels and modern geo.

2016 is old?

Just had a google of the numbers and they look quite good (Although I’d be at the very least on the XL, rather than my normal large. This seams to be a California problem not a specialized one, looking at some of the other US brands)

Seems pretty bang on (within a range of a few degrees and mm) for what you use it for.

Remember specialised have succumbed to the VW Golf disease. Each revision needs to be bigger travel, longer, slacker than the model year before.
The Enduro from 2016 is probably nearer to 2020 Stumpy in terms of capability and intended use.
The new Enduro looks to be a Racebike/bikepark only machine.

As long as you stick with that bike, you’ll be fine.

Yup! Up until last August, my burliest bike was a 2012 Dialled Bikes Prince Albert. Rode it everywhere, had a lot of fun. Was a bit steep at 120mm, a bit high at 150mm (dual position Sektors). Then I bought a Sonder Signal. I’m riding that everywhere now, and having a lot of fun. It’s my first L bike, all previous have been M.

I spangled the rear wheel a month ago and had to ride the PA again a few times. Great fun, feels like a BMX in comparison. But binned it 3 times in 2 hours at Rogate and again the next ride. Never crashed it that much before!

I had a go on a Geometron G13, it was great, very confidence inspiring, just a bit pricy for me, so I ordered a FlareMax with a 140mm fork, its not quite as extreme as the G13 but its closer than the Giant Trance that its replacing.

still riding a 2014 Transition bandit 29.

I’m pretty sure a more modern bike would be at least 120% betterer but while this one still rides, I’ll keep riding it.

I have an Evil The Following Mk1, also from 2016. Some magazine articles would have me believe that it’s reach and seat angle are out of date. Frankly I am tired of being told I need to spend my hard earned on the latest big thing. Super-boost hubs are the final straw for me.

I enjoy riding the bike(s) that I have already got and I will stick with time until a really worth while development comes along, I am thinking something akin to the impact that suspension forks or disc brakes had back in the day.

A few years ago I bought a whyte 901 after being suckered in by all the mags raving about the modern geo and slack HA. Ended up disliking it as being too wandery on technical climbs and not precise enough on fast flowing singletrack. Sold the frame and bought a more traditional xc frame with a 70 deg HA and much much prefer it.

Probably my XC bias coming out though, it was great fun on trail centres but less well suited to technical natural stuff.

I think there’s a limit tbh unless you’re after pure speed over fun (I.e racing seriously).

I’ve ridden an enduro bike for the last 3 years which I feel was at the limit of reach and headangle for me (481mm reach / 64 degree ish headangle) but where I was much much faster than on my previous fs bike that had a very short reach and steeper headangle (and less travel).

However, when I got to a certain speed I found I struggled to weight the front end enough and had 3 biggish crashes as a result.

I’ve actually dialled it back with the new frame I’ve got with a shorter reach (457mm) and slightly steeper head angle (65 ish degrees) and less travel. Much happier and more confident so far and got a stack of pbs both up and downhill at Cwmcarn on the red laps there.

Still happy with my 2008 Spesh Stumpjumper Elite. Stuck some new 650b wheels on it at xmas 2019 and an uppy downy post xmas 2018.

Everything fits, everything works. Job done.

I dont have enough RAM in my tiny little brain for working out if a .75 degree change in head angle would really make a huge difference to my riding.

Still just trying to pay the mortgage and keep my family safe in these crazy times.

Really dont have enough time in my life to dedicate to working out the relative merits of 36mm widgets compared to 36.5mm widgets.

I just want my bike to work and be ready the second i find some time to ride.

Besides, you ever heard golfers talking about bloody golf club technology…. God forbid that mountain biking heads down that route…. Bloody boring!

I’ve a 2014 5010 that I have no plans to get rid of despite having newer, more modern geo, bikes. It’s still brilliant.

I think this type of thread is as old as the old bikes people are satisfied riding no?

To be filed with the other recurring singletrack threads such as ‘what wifi router’, ‘english language use that annoys me’ and ‘trousers: talk to me’

2009 ibis mojo hd

I have fitted slack bushes to it and 160mm forks but it’s still steep and short by modern comparisons. But it does make an excellent all rounder for long days out.

I’ve done demos on modern geometry stuff and they all commonly feel better going down .

I’ve ridden maybe 2 or 3 that I feel work in all round situation. Most feel flipfloppy in the front end on climbs although due to length the front end stays down it’s just unweighted+ slack angles.

See no reason to change yet.

My MTB is a 2011 Cove HJ, SLX spec with 26″ wheels.
I spent a lot of money on a bike that’s hardly been used due to sciatica and a knee problem and sadly it’s now almost obsolete. 🤦‍♂️

I just ride my Camino now as it’s great for crap roads and easy bridleways

of all the bikes I’ve owned or ridden, it’s the 2007 MY Pre-CEN Cotic that has the most “right” geometry IMHO.

It was better with 90mm stem too and 100mm forks than the 120mm and 70mm stem that are on there right now.

that’s the one I continue to ride the most.

sometimes fashionable numbers are wrong, or at least not always right.

Horses for course. Happy with my Mk-2 Soul, only reason for changing was I just couldn’t get a fork to fit and didn’t want to wear it out and be bike less. I also really like on trend geometry of my Coretex. Quite happy riding around on a fully rigid 95 Pine Mountain until it went AWOL in the late noughties. The Roadrat kind of covers off that gap now. Probably wouldn’t ride the 89 Bear Valley.

Isn’t this why we have gravel bikes?

Got a 2015 Trek Fuel EX, the first of the 27.5 ones but with old school numbers that are very similar to my now retired 2011 Orange 5. I also have a Gen 3 Cotic Rocket which ticks every LLS box. I ride the Trek a lot more as it’s better at not steam-rollering the trails to the point of boredom, saving the Rocket for uplift days or rides that prioritise the downs. I’m actually thinking the Rocket would be a better ride (note that’s not more capable) if I was the steepen the head angle by a degree and knock the fork down to 150mm. The current angles with a 160mm fork are great at saving me from my lack of skill getting me into trouble but the t does sometimes feel like the bike is taking me on a journey rather than me riding the bike. Basically turning it into what my old 5 was but with a bit more rear travel and a lot more reach.

Has anyone tried both and found new school geo and preferred their older bikes?

I think the geometry changes have made for bikes that are generally more fun, steeper seat angles work well with dropper posts, and make for better climbing, slacker head angles make for more sure footed descending for the “average-joe” rider. These are “good things” But did we have less fun on old-skool bikes? Probably not, but do I want to ride around on one? No not really.

At what point do people think the new school changes will become too much

when they become too narrowly focused. TBH I don’t know where that is. I do know that if you’d asked me 20 years ago what kind of bike I’d be using as my daily ride, I would not have said a full carbon 160mm enduro bike with a hydraulic dropper post, and 200mm discs. I look at what we’ve got now, and frankly, they’re bloody amazing bits of kit, I can’t remember that last time anything broke, or needed rebuilding, or stripping down…That’s the thing that I love about modern bikes, the fact that they’re usable, and they work.

I’ve got a 2016 Liv Lust which is pretty old-school xc (419mm reach, 70 degree head angle 74 seat). I love it round the woods and up on the south downs, it flys up along and nips through tight flat single track brilliantly.

I’ve also got a bird aeris 145 all long low and slack which I also love. But the lust is better locally, the aeris is for bigger days.

15 year old MK1 Soul, and my limits are well below the limits of the bike!

i have two FS bikes.

one is a very modern long-ish travel 29er – a Guerilla Gravity Smash with a coil fork and shock. The other is a first generation Transition Scout. quite short and low, and not particularly slack.

the GG is faster pretty well everywhere. it is also so brutally effective that it is best ridden on trails that demand it, trails to which i have good access to in non-COVID times. it also requires a more aggressive style of riding to get the most out of it. it replaced a 2017 Radon Swoop, which itself was fairly long, low and slack. The GG is a much better bike than that – for me it is more efficient, more effective and less drawbacks. Only relatively modest changes in geometry vs the Radon, plus big wheels and maybe the coil suspension helps too, but head and shoulders a better bike for the purpose. so i think for this purpose (i.e. enduro, all-mountain or whatever its now called), modern geometry bikes are a big improvement even on bike geometry from 3-4 years ago.

the scout is more engaging on technically easier trails. its easier to wheelie, hop and manual, so for messing about on i prefer it to the GG – and can be ridden on the same trails as I referred to above, though it isn’t as effective. for riding from my door, this is by far the better bike in my eyes. i think i feel the same about my scout as tomhoward feels about his 5010. they’re very similar bikes, and its the ideal bike for the riding i do with it.

i haven’t ridden the new generation Scout, but looking at the numbers I think it’ll sit somewhere between the two bikes i own. so better as an all round bike if you could only have one, but a compromise i’d suspect.

so i think that as ever, consider how well a bike will fit your purposes before deciding what’s “better”.

(Looks at 2009 bike)

This is my second most modern hardtail ever*. It feels great BTW. Looks tallshort, dunnit?

*The one that it replaced was a 2010 Giant XTC which felt horribly wrong all over.

I’m still riding a 2008 Anthem with a 115 mm U-Turn Reba on it. Good enough for what I do.

What @scotroutes said rings true for me: “As long as you stick with that bike, you’ll be fine.”

I was happy with my size M 2008 Soul with 100mm forks until I’d borrowed a mate’s XL Vitus Sentier for a bit. When I got back on the Cotic I realised just how short the it was, and how (relatively) steep the head angle. I’ve got an NS Eccentric now as my hard tail, and it’s a much more confidence-inspiring ride.

However.

I keep looking at the Soul hidden away in the shed, and to be honest, I miss it. I had a lot of good times on that bike, and although what I mostly enjoy is cringing my way down steep tech, sometimes a nice bit of mellow singletrack is just what the doctor ordered, and the Soul was great for that.

So I’m hopefully going to bring it back to life as a singlespeed, rigid, light as heck sort of thing. And it’ll be awesome.

I still ride a year 2000 sunn xc bike and a 1992 rigid marin for and local stuff. I’ve even ridden the sunn down steep shoots and it’s fine for me. For bike parks and gnarly stuff I ride 2005 four cross bike which is low with a 69 degree head angle and a 140mm bomber.i also ride a 2005 burley built heckler with a 69 degree head angle and 140mm old skool piles. Do not feel the need to change it.its like a downhill bmx.i also ride an old skool 2005 Dh bike which is pretty low and very confidence inspiring. No plans to change it.it looks virtually new too. From riding from my door which are mixed urban and parkland I ride the xc bikes. All of my riding is based on fun. I love them all and have no plans to change them. Tbh my dh bike is long enough slack enough and low enough compared to some of the old dh bikes. Compared to riding my bmx they all feel slack and inspire confidence.

Sam here, had a Soul I loved, but other bikes made it seem tiny, and then had a Last Fast Forward which made those bikes seems small, and then three Geometrons

I think if you are riding gnarly steep stuff or hard dh tracks a new skool bike would be ideal.

My current bike is a 2016 Giant Anthem X29er and my riding is pretty much what I was doing 25 years ago, mostly on the same trails. There is the odd visit to Swinley and Welsh trail centers as well. At no point for the riding that I do have I felt underbiked. I look at ‘modern’ bikes and think I’d be hopelessly over biked. I test rode an Orange Segment about 6 years ago- around the car park of the LBS and it felt awful, all my weight was on the saddle and it was such an upright position. I know the car park isn’t a proper test ride but it put me off totally. I think I’m still stuck in the ’90s….

I’m not convinced that new skool geometry is any worse anywhere when compared to old skool, at least when implemented properly and fully embraced.

As we all know the geometry of bike is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

You can’t consider just head angle without factoring its effect on weight distribution between the wheels, which needs correcting by using a longer front centre, which in turn affects cockpit which can then be adjusted by seat tube angle… And so it continues ad infinitum.

The thing is most of us – and I include myself in this – are still used to setting up bikes with old skool methodologies and thought processes.

Personally, apart from attention whores, I think we are near peak long low slack, but I think we are still waiting for the light bulb to go on about taller stack and higher handlebars being a good thing on a long bike.

This is my bike (well, frame, all the bits are different):

https://www.evanscycles.com/genesis-altitude-30-2010-mountain-bike-00129208

It has 3 rings at the front, 9 at the back, 26″ wheels, 2.3 tyres, 130mm fork with ‘classic’ geometry and is from 2010. It’s limiting factor is very much me.

I think if you are riding gnarly steep stuff or hard dh tracks a new skool bike would be ideal.

I think if you are racing gnarly steep stuff or hard dh tracks a new skool bike would be essential.

if you aren’t racing, then ride whatever you like.

Still on my 2010 Stumpjumper FSR. I don’t really ride mtb enough to justify shelling out a few grand to replace it & to be honest, I lose my bottle a lot quicker than the bike runs out of capability.

I keep looking at sticking new brakes on it & a 1×11 upgrade kit. I costed it out to around £350 the other day & even baulked at the idea of that….idiot.

My newest bike is a blur from 2006, then a zaskar from 1996, I really cant see how being longer and slacker would benefit me around places like Thetford and Rendlesham

Has anyone tried both and found new school geo and preferred their older bikes?

Not for me, I went from 416 reach to 481 and 66.5 HA to 64.5.

I had put off even trying a LLS because I’ve got limited range of movement in my right elbow and just expected it to always be running out of elbow, but I sat on it and knew straight away I had been doing it wrong.

Admittedly I was *probably* on the wrong size bike, I’d ridden Medium frames for 10+ years because when I bought my first bike the guy in the shop looked at me, asked my height (5′ 10″) and said “yeah, medium” on most frames I’m recommended height for Medium and Large, but usually closer to large.

I’m on a Medium-Long Bird now and it’s a very nice fit for me. It took about 1 decent ride to get used to the length for turning and I’ve never looked back.

Saying that, I don’t know if it’s the length, the bike, or the suspension but it’s VERY fussy about balance, too much sag at the rear and it under-steers like a pig, the front just goes vague and slides. Too much sag to the front and it puts a lot of weight onto my wrists / elbow and I get a lot of pain. Needs near constant adjustment to get it in the sweet spot.

2015 Chromag Rootdown here…  Happy with it?  Yes… Looking at new geo full suspesion bikes? Also yes…

2015:

2020

Comparing Large frame, reach has increased by 51mm, 3.5deg has come off the HA, fork travel range upped by 10mm, 3deg added to the SA…etc

One thing to note: The scope of the Rootdown has changed a bit as it was a Taiwanese built version of the Surface but now Chromag reckon the BC built equivalent of the Rootdown is the Primer.  The current version of the Surface is still significantly slacker and longer than the 2015 Rootdown/Surface.

2025 Surface

2020 Surface

2008 Cotic Soda here with 130mm Revelations. I can wrap my head around how 29 (or 650b) would probably make it roll better over roots and rocks, but I just don’t have a need for something “better” as it does everything I need.

I look at Pinkbike every so often, and honestly cannot find a single bike that fits the version of MTB I know. And tbh it feels like the regular bike press make absolutely sod all effort to try to elucidate how long/ low/ slack/ the latest amazing geo actually changes anything. So I’ve never got round to updating. If or when I have to get new forks I’ll probably have to get a new frame, as the headtube is straight, 1 1/4″ etc.