Been done to death I’m sure, but…

I have 2 MTBs, a rigid + bike and a 2016 5.  Both have pretty similar gearing – 5 has 30T round front ring with 11-42 10 spd cassette, + bike has a 32T oval front ring with the same 11-42 cassette out back.  +Bike is heavier than the 5 by at least 5 pounds, obviously has fatter tyres but it has more of an “XC” geometry.  I can happily pedal the +bike up hill and down dale, but on the 5, as soon as i start going up, I feel like I’m really fighting the bike and pedalling seems to be a struggle, even with both ends locked out.  I even get off and push at times, something I never do on any other bike. Like pedalling through treacle is how I would describe it.  I love the 5 on the way back down though, so kind of putting up with it for that!

So, anything I can do to improve the way the 5 climbs or is that just the way it is?  It doesn’t feel like it’s bobbing around, I’ve checked the shock/fork pressures etc, all seem good.

Ive questioned this as well. One of my bikes feels ridiculously hard work on the climbs.. Im going to try moving the saddle forward to effectively steepen the seat tube angle and see if it Makes a difference As is it feels like I’m using a completely different set of leg muscles than on my other bikes.

From a review of the 2016 5 RS model:

In an ideal world, all we’d do is go down a hill, but unfortunately hills are also there to be ridden up; not every trail lets gravity do all the work. Here, the Five loses a bit of its shine. The slack angles and active suspension mean that it can feel a little sluggish when you’re traversing hills. Without a multi-link suspension system providing anti-squat chain tension the Five can suck a bit of life out of spirited efforts. When the trail heads up and weight shifts back, it can feel like you’re sat quite far back on the bike too, needing a conscious effort to lower your torso towards the stem to keep it all in check. At 13.8kg, it’s no flyweight for this sort of money either.

Sounds like what you’re experiencing – in comparison a rigid plus bike should fly up hills with massive grip the rigid back end.

Yes, in short.

If the front end is too high, your weight will be shifted back and pedalling will become more effort & you won’t be able to control the front so easily over rocks etc

I have always wondered – you set shock sag stood up with your weight balanced. When you settle in to the saddle for a long climb your rear can be close to 40% and the forks are at almost full extension. This has got to be a few degrees slackening of seat angle.

Tyres make a massive difference IME.

Yes, a bike with ‘poor’ climbing position will be slower uphill, one with soft suspension will be more challenging unless on really technical / bumpy climb.

Yes, wheel (particularly) and overall weight can make it feel harder work uphill. My HT with light wheels accelerates in a very instant way, unlike the Specialized FSR and Radon Slide my sons have. The Superlight is halfway inbetween in terms of sprightlyness IMO.

Moses – the front of the 5 is way lower than the +bike, but obviously the geo of the rigid bike doesn’t change under load like the FS bike.  I’ve been through a couple of different wheelsets and different tyre combos on the 5 but ultimately it’s still hard work.

I tend to run the rear shock at high(ish) pressure as I prefer a less active feel on the suspension anyway.  Maybe I’ll try moving the seat forward a bit, see if that helps.  Or I could just man up and grind it out 😉

Fwiw I’ve ridden a few bikes over the years that I’ve climbed badly on. Some of those have, despite feeling bloody awful, been quicker up hill than ones which felt lovely* going up. I’ve tended to find pleasantness of up hill is inversely proportional to pleasantness down. Speed up and down seems to have little to do with how much I’m enjoying my self or, more relevantly, how fast I’ve felt.

*lovely is obviously comparative not absolute.

It’s not really that the bike is bad at climbing, it’s more that the geometry of the bike puts your body into a poor position for you to give your best.

obviously, every bike is a compromise, so if it’s set up to climb well, it will be less good at other disciplines, like downhill. as an example, a cx bike is always gonna pedal better than a dh bike, as a cx bike will tend to get pedalled for an hour+ whereas a dh bike gets pedalled for 4 mins at a time.

When im setting up a new bike, the first thing i do is get my pedalling position right, then work on bar height, stem length etc.

worth pointing out, i am not a dh rider, not by a long shot.

Little bit of the flavour that lots of people have been covering in my list of things (not complete) that can make a bike a drag on a drag:

1. Seat angle too slack (not a known 5 problem)
2. Too short reach
3. Too slow rebound damping
4. Lockout (yep, it can make things worse if things are bumpy)
5. Sag-dependent antisquat (not usually a big 5 trait)
6. Wrong sized chainring
7. Too “hammocky” spring curve
8. Other fit issues (more on that later)
9. Overly square profile tyre (super wide rim for the tyre size)
10. Worn drivetrain

Ok so that covers pretty much everything but let’s break it down.

If your seat angle is slack, you have to spend muscle energy stabilising yourself on the bike (tense arms, torso).  When the bike is pointing upwards the seated position rotates backwards, so maybe setup a little bit forward of where you’d want to be for pedalling on the flat and it might be good.  A layback post on a bike like this is usually an error (body shape depending).  With the position rotating back, more weight shifts onto the back as well so you get more sag too.  You can really perk up a bad climber by shifting your seated position forward… as long as you don’t have ….

… a reach that is too short (because received wisdom told you to get a short stem without taking into account the whole fit of the bike).  You’ll spend muscle energy stabilising yourself on the bike.  Bent arms.  Hunched over.  It won’t take long to lose the will.

3,4,5,6,7 and 8 are all variants of the same thing and are the heart of the matter of the dynamics of the bike.  You wouldn’t be posting this if there wasn’t a problem so the problem is real.  I won’t tell you otherwise.  There is no magic perfect antisquat figure that the bike does or doesn’t have but there are multiple things that come together to create the entire picture of what is going on dynamically.  The simple single pivot responds to whatever springing and damping you support it with.  The linkage responds to chainring size (chain tension).  The linkage responds to how tall you are (how far your CoG is above the ground plane).  This is evidently a minefield for bad advice based on inadequate information.

Let’s just focus on one aspect: where does the energy go and what has that got to do with number 3 on my list.

When you pedal, lost energy can occur in two mechanisms: a) a bobbing shock can transfer heat into the damping ; b) stored energy can be delivered back into the system in a way that is biomechanically taxing.

Cause (b) is much more common.  This is same for any squidginess.  What is going on is that the resistance to effort is out of phase with the effort you are trying to supply.  When any springiness is wound up in the frame or shock during the power stroke, it unwinds when you’re in the dead spot.  Piling on the damping actually makes the time delay worse (phase shift).  The net result is that when you are biomechanically weakest (dead spot) the stored energy takes advantage by decelerating your rotating pedals, decelerating your spinning feet and spiking resistance in your overwhelmed muscles.  The linkage of importance is not your single pivot bike but the conrods of your femur and tibia.  When you have very little mechanical advantage over making the pedals do what you want them to do, then spikes and loads will end up as very fatiguing eccentric strains in your muscles.  The double whammy is that your momentum saps away and when you finally get to apply the next pedal stroke the first part of it gets squidged away again to come back to bite you come the next dead spot.

My cryptic (8) of other fit issues is to do with height of CoG.  If you’re tall, the by-the-book antisquat may not be enough and a smaller chainring may compensate; maybe.  This is also aggravated by too short reach and maybe a high stack.  If you’re shorter, the antisquat may be plentiful and too much compression damping may keep you out of phase in the opposite sense.

Lastly, (9) and (10) will take their toll and are just plain mechanical truths.  If your tyre is a beast with a DH casing, soft tread and a square profile, it will drag.  Worn bits never feel as perky as new.

So my place to start is to make sure you’re comfortable on the bike and can tolerate a reasonably forward position on the bike without being cramped.  Make sure your shock has had a decent air can service and a decent overhaul if it hasn’t had one since ever.  Make sure your rebound damping is fast and keeping you up in the travel.  Don’t rely overly on volume spacers in the shock; these can tend towards the untameable unless you drop the sag.  It is easy to make a bike feel dead (lots of LSC) so keep it relatively lively and stay away from the ‘pedalling platforms” until you have a good base setting.  Keep the platforms as an option if you need to go further and realise that they may not always do what they say on the tin.

FWIW, I ride a 165mm travel bike (single pivot) with Vivid Air shock and I get up things.

Yes, but I’d be pretty sceptical of most of the reasons that are often given for this. Especially magazine reviewers who often trot out the same old stuff with very little evidence. For example, if a bike has steeper seat angles these days it seems to be almost a given that it will climb well, but on its own seat angle makes very little difference. Even recumbent riders mange to get up hills.

I think there are at least four factors to consider (and probably more):

1) how much rolling resistance is there?

Tyres make a huge difference, but it can be counter-intuitive. For example, my fastest times up lots of climbs were set on a fatbike with 5″ tyres.

2) can you keep the front wheel pointing in the right direction?

If you are having to adopt a weird position on the bike in order to make it go where you want the that can quickly become tiring.

3) Is energy being “lost” somewhere between your legs and the rear contact patch?

Any energy that goes into a damped suspension system (for example) is probably to be avoided as some will get “lost” in heating up the damping oil. Flex in a steel frame, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be such an issue as you seem to get that back and it may be that it actually smooths out power delivery.

4) Biomechanical efficiency

Nope, I’ve got no idea what this really means either, but it probably matters.

I don’t fully understand why, but on most climbs my fully rigid fatbike will kill any suspension bikes I’ve ever owned (including hardtails).

Jase………..plain and simple. it is because oranges are shyte……………FACT  ;o)

Tony, you’re probably right.  However, you’d think that a bike built about 5 miles away from my house would be tested on some of the hills I look out of my windows at 🙂

peaslaker/roverpig – that lot’s going to take me a while to digest, thanks (I think!)

bang your sat far forward and see if it helps

I recently got a 2016/17 Orbea Rallon with 160mm suspensions .

It climbs better than my previous bike , Titus FTM .

By better i mean that i go up things i had to walk before . I am really surprised how good it feels on technical climbs . I dont lock suspensions though , just on the stiffest settings .

And it is even  better going down . But that is what it is designed for .

Got a 5 RS have no issues doing stupid big climbs either simple grind or techy. Rider position, cadence? I like climbing as well though

obviously, every bike is a compromise, so if it’s set up to climb well, it will be less good at other disciplines, like downhill.

Shapeshifter…. 👍