Best 853 Clean, Smooth, 160mm Taking Hardtail Frame?

Im after a very clean lined frame with thin tubing so im thinking 853 steel that can take forks up to 160mm (but maybe less if its beautiful).

new or 2nd hand or just opinions im 6foot tall

something like a dialled alpine but cleaner?

Cotic Befe or something from evil.

or a Dialled bikes Alpine.

160mm? Whoa!

a curtis?

when you say cleaner, i assume you are talking about the seatpost brace bit?

what do Chromag do?

curtis nope not a fan, dont want an alpine, cotics dont have replacable mech hangers and ive seen quite a few gone

160mm? Jeez this is getting silly these days, surely? I do (big time) get clean lines, slim tubes. How that fits with massive long fork I don't get!

Not being provocative, but how does that work? You hit a six inch bump and the front of the bike swallows it whole… and then milliseconds later the nil travel back end slams in, and…? Am I getting old?

yeah the seatpost brace the rest of the frame is smooooooth but the brace makes it fugly, i really liked the old balfa minuteman i wish they still made them!

ill check chromag 🙂

I think DeKerf might do something nice.

yeah you must be getting old 🙂 its not for xc its for the lakes where I need to pedal up and fly it down.. my main love is downhilling and at the moment ive got a RFX but im fancying keeping it even simpler and lighter, the backend never matters if your not in control of your front end, thats a problem.

The Chromag TRL Looks nice but it also has some bizzare gusseting

Nearly seven inches of dive relative to the back end = less control of the front, not more?

Clearly I am indeed t'old. Or maybe you're not old enough. 🙂

you must be sitting down too much / letting the bike ride you, if you stay over your front end aggressivly your backend can be besides you and you'll still be in control

Just seen a Ragley Blue Pig – look rather tasty but maybe a little bit steep for good hard descents anyone ridden one of these?

He he.

I can assure you I don't sit down too much. Or let the bike ride me.

I don't ride on the fork either though. I drive the bike with my feet, and that's how I teach other people to ride.

I've never ridden a really long forked hardtail – I was just curious to get an insight into how nice (to my mind) values like slim steel tubes get mixed up with (to my mind) faddish values like wildly different travel front to back.

Each to their own, not criticising. Hope you find the frame for you.

How do you figure that the Ragley is too steep, it has one of the slackest head angles of all the HT's available.

oh ive just seen the specs they are actually quite slack! was just put off seeing that a lot of people had pikes fitted on theres
awesome think this is the one!

This just looks pish doesn't it, couldn't possibly be fun to ride 😀

Yeh, 160mm is pretty much pointless on a hardtail, makes the ride less fun and takes away part of the best bits about having a hardtail.

I must admit, in the Alps burly forks on my hardtail seemed to make sense seen as it was an out and out pummeling, but for most of the stuff in the uk its pretty pointless I'd say, and makes xc even more depressing.

I'd probably run even shorter forks than 130mm if I could, but I dont know which ones would fit the bill and it would probably make the headangle too steep.

The Blue Pig thing looks mint but it hardly has clean lines! Get one and sell your RFX

The brace on Alpines are only there as Mike had some older Prince Albert front end braces left over from the 520 PAs 🙄

New Dialled Alpine is out soonish, not sure if it still has the pretty reinforcing gussetty tube.

The Blue Pig is not 853. No repaceable dropout either.

glenp i can relate but when you see alpine elements guys riding the alpine all day with 140+ forks some up's and lots of downs it works.. somehow.. 🙂

^ The blue pig does however have some impressive test data up online though!

I'm not rushing into anything now then I'll see what the new alpine looks like 🙂

Not knocking what I haven't tried, but since I very rarely hit the front of my bike hard enough to use full travel I guess its just not my sort of riding!

Yeh, new Alpine looks like mine i think mate, but i sizing is different. Apart from that there apparently the same

You selling the Turner then?

not too sure yet best way to free up funds and get a lighter bike fo sho tho

ok RS I admit it, I do fancy trying something like that, as yet I dont get it, but, who knows.

what do you need a replaceable dropout on a steel frame for anyway? You can just bend it back.

New Mk2 Alpines will look exactly the same as the Mk1 Alpines, just a tad bigger/longer.

If you don't like the lines of the Alpine, Alexxx, then the Ragley Blue Pig is worth considering. Ticks most of your boxes apart from being made of 853. Cotic Bfe is the other one worth looking at.

Don't think it's 853 but maybe a NS Bikes Surge? Replace-able mech-hanger too. Rather heavy tho!

Actually, your best bet would be an On One summer season with the slack head angle, or a 456 cos there both £125 i think

fozzybear – Member
glenp i can relate but when you see alpine elements guys riding the alpine all day with 140+ forks some up's and lots of downs it works.. somehow..

I didn't realise the Alpine Elements guides also rode Alpines ( 😀 if that's right). Or did you mean TrailAddiction?

Chameleon is nice and smooth, takes 160mm forks. Not steel though, sorry.

cotics dont have replacable mech hangers and ive seen quite a few gone

Point = Missed
Steel bends back again.
I rescued this, when even Brant said he thought it was a framebuilder job….

It was bent as far as it's possible to go: Right into the cassette, locking it up. It simply doesn't get any worse! (If you look carefully at the 2nd pic, you can see the gouge the cassette teeth cut into the inner surface of the dropout)
Frame was 3 weeks old at the time, it's now 2 years and going strong.

Replaceable dropouts not needed.
🙂

mike
god i'm sorry…
i have brain fade…
i've bought bikes from you before and spoken to you on the phone and been to trailaddiction 2 times and i still got the name wrong.

sorry mike.

I sold my Alpine waay too quickly. It should definitely be on your list Alexxx

^ haha impressive save peter, Im not fully agianst the idea of it not being replacable but it'd be nicer in my book if they were for a faster save.

all interesting 😀

your unlikely to find a steel frame with replaceable hanger… I think… could be wrong.

Hora you bellend 😉 you sell every frame too quickly!

Seems like Alexxx doesn't like the shape of the Alpine, which is fair enough.

PeterPoody what happened? someone placed a carbomb on your rear hub?