'Designed for the UK'?

I've seen this a lot in the mags and forums this last couple of years in particular, but what does it mean? Its tagged along with 'specifically for UK riding'.

There are loads of 'designed for the UK' hardtails out there at the moment but what makes them UK ready?

Surely mud is mud, rocks are rocks, roots are roots etc? Riding can't be that different in other parts of the planet can it? Or does it relate to some kind of collective UK riding style?

Is this just more marketing or is there genuinely something in it? Being an ordinary joe, my riding in confined to the UK, so is this something that more well travelled Journo's see?

marketing.

The UK is generally more shity than say California so things like easy to clean pivots / links, well-sealed bearings and mud clearance are important here.

Mud clearance….

mud!

Used to be that a lot of frames had clearance for a back tyre but not much mud on it. It is frequently argued that a lot of moving parts esp bearings and bushings do not cope so well with mud, grit and their repeated washing off.

More cynically, the inclusion of crud catcher bosses. 😀

Isn't it the slack/steep thing that worls well on up/down rides (like trail centres?)

And marketing.

I wondered when mud clearance would crop up. I live near the pretty muddy Mendips and think mud clearance is over stated in the UK. Not that we don't need mud clearance, but as a feature, its over stated.

It goes wider than individual design features too – there's all this talk that the UK is keen on hardtails with big forks that our european cousins don't do and the yanks don't get.

My first bike was a Speicalised Hardrock in '89, it had canti's but my mate's slightly older Rockhopper had brakes attached on the underside of the chainstays ( U brakes ), cos in California they don't have mud! It simply got clogged….. My Hardrock's rear 1.95 tyre regualarly clogged to a standstill with mud. You'd be surprised at how tight on clearances some of the older USA designed bikes were.
Since we've got UK designers making stuff, they've allowed for larger tyres for mud clearances, and people like Hope have driven the use of disc brakes, all to cope with our glorious weather!
Well that's what I think!
cheers
Q

I think LT HT is more mainstream in UK than Europe where xc style is more common/desirable.

yes, but why? The LT hard tail should be equally applicable everywhere, no?

it's designed to fail prematurely and or not fulfil it's duties to keep us in moaning/ranting material

Scienceofficer – Member
yes, but why? The LT hard tail should be equally applicable everywhere, no?

Fashion, marketing, riding style…

IMO UK mimics USA, Europe still has the roadie influence of the 1980s (largely).

So it's not really "designed for the UK", but "successfully marketed in the UK". 😉

Fashion, marketing, riding style…

IMO UK mimics USA, Europe still has the roadie influence of the 1980s (largely).

European riders ride bikes, UK riders stand around in the trail centre car park discussing how they crashed on the drop-off because there "insert latest fade component" failed.

i read an interesting article a while back (think it was st) about how the uk market has driven mtb on so much.

mud clearence
better sealing on forks, headsets, pivots
disc brakes on ALL bikes
trail geometery
full length cables

more or less have been driven by the uk.

IMO UK mimics USA

i disagree look at the steep 6" bikes that the us (used to) do that people here don't get and don't buy

Europe still has the roadie influence of the 1980s (largely)

Looking at the mags we get here in Sweden I think that's a correct statement. The majority of riders are interested in low weight, XC missiles, no matter how inappropriate they are for the local terrain. On the other hand, a lot of the guys I ride with are selling their XC bikes in favour of more typical UK trail bikes. There're at least 2 456's and a Cotic and DMR amongst the riders now.

I haven't ridden in the UK for few years now but, from the way the UK mags portray it, it does seem that a lot of US companies are making bikes specifically for the UK market now. Most of the UK thing now, looks to me like the need for cheap(er), reliable parts instead of super hi-tech idiocy*.

*that being said, I haven't ridden a trailcentre since the first year Glentress opened. Me and a friend were the only ones there on a Sunday in the middle of summer 😯

As others said – the long travel hardtail is pretty much a UK thing, the yanks and euros just go for full suspension on anything other than an XC race bike.

Also remember that in europe most riders would be classed as XC racers over here where we tend to be a bit more brutal on kit, so a UK hardtail with 100mm forks is very different to a european one. Compare the Sanderson life or O-O inbred, with a Cube or Scott.

I once had a conversation with Keith Bontrager about disc brakes. He said that he thought they were pretty pointless on most mountain bikes until he actually came to the UK and rode.

he no longer thinks that.

it may appear like marketing, but in the late 90's myself all the guys i rode with were on larger sized Chameleons, DS-1s and similar bikes with 110mm bombers, big tyres and short stems, ride xc with the saddle up and dh / jumps with the saddle down. Cotic made the Soul around that time, Dialled made some cool bikes, Pastey and a few others appeared, the 456 and other UK LT HT bikes got popular.
seems like that approach has filtered through to today's 'UK-mainstream' production bikes. It's definately rider-driven at the brands that do it well, as brands that 'cynically' claim to be designed for the UK often miss the sublter stuff like the more trail-ready handling traits or screw up the balance of burly vs xc.

no real logic to it, just comes down to a rider's attitude or reason for riding, culturally a lot of things vary across the world including what / why we like to ride.

the long travel hardtail is pretty much a UK thing

Except for the Spooky Metalhead, Cove Stiffee, SC Chameleon, Banshee Scirocco…

I think of the tag "UK Specific" as being an indicator that something's a good all-rounder – not too burly or too fragile, with decent geometry for riding up, down and along most of the terrain you get in the UK.

MrMW – I assume that comment is due to mud riding?

Well I have not read a lot, but the mud clearance is balls… See someone from lets say BC in canada is probably going to have ride as muddier as someone in the UK. But for example the bike will have different geometries (take an HJ and compare it to a inbred) and different mud clearance. Then you can't really compare UK and EU. Actually that's ball you can. Riding all over UK is going to be different (al can probably teach 90% of the english forum users how to ride) same is riding in France, someone from brittany is going to cry out loud going up and down where I live…

Probably the same as motorcycles, as our climate lets you ride all year around. Whereas most countries are either a lot warmer (and no issue) or a lot colder and consequently bikes are only used 6(ish) months of the year.

Global warming though is having an impact, as friends in Germany now insure and tax their bikes for a full year, whereas 10 years ago it was more likely just for 6 months.

Rock Shox forks seem very lacking in mud-room, compared to Fox and Magura?

I think it makes a lot of sense. I've ridden with a lot of German riders over the years in the Canaries and their bikes tend usually to be flat barred short travel racy HT's and they seem to eye UK bikes and styles with some curiosity. There definately seems to be a different riding ethos between most of the UK riders that I know and the German guys that I know and this is obvious by their bikes. Added to this is the biking heritage of things coming out of California where the climate is about as opposite to here as it can get. It's taken a while for things to move away from that Cali-centric way of thinking.

I've first hand experience of 'Mericans "just not getting" the whole LT HT thing, those bikes that Mr Agreeable mentions notwithstanding (they are very niche) they seem to think in terms of either 'very' full suss or race bikes

Last ride I went on was muddy, my P7 had miles of space between the tyre and frame for mud to pass through. My mate on a nice new 575 had mud clogging the rear wheel and dragging – claim it to be marketing all you like I think there was a real difference in the thought process when designing the frames 🙂

See someone from lets say BC in canada is probably going to have ride as muddier as someone in the UK.

Nope, despite the rain, there's not much mud around here. The soil level simply isn't deep enough to get muddy.

I think one important point has been missed – In Europe they don't get the 'steel hardtail' thing either (Ask Juan) or singlespeeds. I Europe I believe we're pretty much alone in that. I might be wrong, but name a Euro bike that's made out of steel, not alloy……..

BR makes the important point. Most of the yanks, canucks, etc who live in the mountains only ride for 6 months of the year. The rest of the time they're under snow. So they don't get that endless winter slop & sludge that simply kills bike componentry.

Sunn make a nice steel HT, but yeah the Europeans tend to see steel as simply 'too heavy' – that's another difference i see, less UK riders go for really light kit whereas Tune parts in Germany are a classic Euro lightweight-to-extremes brand that you rarely see here.

A couple of years ago I took a few of my work staff (all cyclists of various forms) to Afan, one lad, a German intern was a very fit and competent rider.

We borrowed a bike for him. On the Wall he was up the fire-roads like a whippet and then proceeded to run up anything steepish. When at the top and facing the downs he was gobsmacked when we lowered seats and aimed for big gears. He couldn't beleive that we were going to ride down singletrack…

He really enjoyed it though, and said how different it was from the usual German enduro/races/rides he'd been on.

I might be wrong, but name a Euro bike that's made out of steel, not alloy……..

Scapin, although the Nope also goes some way to support the other statements on here, by being more of the XC race persuasion.

My experience of the continental riders I know is that they have a similar mindset to most UK roadies – if they are on a bike they are either riding an event or training for riding an event. A lot of UK mtb riders ride bikes just to ride bikes with no longer term motive – ultimate speed from a to b is not the driving factor. Also, and I'm going to get myself a slagging for this one, uk mtbs are more "comfortably shaped" in comparison to our euro cousins who look and behave more like roadies in body composition. UK mtbers seem (on average) to be a lot less fit, so consequentially get our kicks in different ways – mostly gravity assisted.

– the long travel hardtail is pretty much a UK thing, the yanks and euros just go for full suspension on anything other than an XC race bike

Perhaps I am American or European then as I just don't get long travel hardtails

My UK designed bike designed for the Alps works very well in Sweden. The mud dries up quickly here. Most of the other bikes I see are either very XC racer type ones or very big downhill bikes at the nearest lift assisted trails.

So, we've got 2 Euro bikes made out of steel, one of which I've never heard of. I think I was about right then 🙂

We borrowed a bike for him. On the Wall he was up the fire-roads like a whippet and then proceeded to run up anything steepish. When at the top and facing the downs he was gobsmacked when we lowered seats and aimed for big gears. He couldn't beleive that we were going to ride down singletrack…

That must be why Magura make such good brakes then? 😉

I'd love to hear more about this mindset though….

I'd love to hear more about this mindset though….

Living in holland confronted me also with this phenomenon.
The majority of bikes sold here are aluminium xc race HT's with 80 or 100mm forks, with 100mm concerned as LT. Weight weenying is still the rage and bars and tyres have to be narrow and skinny. As for trail gnarlyness, they closed the only 2 foot drop in our local track for being to high and a potential risk. Health and safety at it's best. 😉
We've been given an odd look or two when we turned up for a ride with 160mm forks, wide risers, big tyres and sporting baggies.
As far as I can see it boils down to UK's XC is now Euro's freeride. 😉

So, fat boy taunting aside, there's some kind of ideological difference in where we get our riding kicks?

It means the slot on the seat tube faces forwards rather than backwards.

'designed for uk' = 'designed for trail centres' imo

reckon it'll all be about bikes designed for the far east in a few years time… 😉