Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Getting weight over front of longer bike
  • sideshow
    Free Member

    Taking an off camber corner fast involves *really* weighting the front of the bike, right?

    This is pretty straightforward on my inbred 29er
    Also on a canyon nerve 26er
    Even quite possible on my battered commute bike

    Can’t figure out how to do it on an enduro 29er though! Presumably because it’s longer and slacker? How does one go about this?

    Rorschach
    Free Member

    Getting the bars low enough is difficult on long travel 29ers at the best of times.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    I’m sure I’ve seen even droopier stems out there!

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    sideshow
    Free Member

    In my naivety I thought there might be a technique which helps not just kit purchase? hmm I guess this is stw after all…

    Are long travel 26/27.5ers any easier or does the long front end present a problem there as well?

    deviant
    Free Member

    In my naivety I thought there might be a technique which helps not just kit purchase? hmm I guess this is stw after all…

    Read the Dirt-100 this year…they put the Enduro-29 in there but said it wasnt without its problems….i believe they fitted a negative rise stem and also played with shock lengths to get it to handle properly….once they’d done that they said it was virtually unstoppable downhill.

    soobalias
    Free Member

    if you have removed all the spacers under the stem,
    flipped the stem,
    im guessing it already has flat bars….

    you might have to accept that the benefits of a 29r are not without their drawbacks.

    technique wise, put more weight through the bars (IANACoach)

    kimbers
    Full Member

    im assuming you have nuskool approved extra wide bars fitted

    I find they help a lot cornering with bigger wheels and IMHO its about leaning it over as well as getting weight forward, maybe try roatating you brake levers forward or back to see if that alters how you ride too

    sideshow
    Free Member

    What deviant says is interesting: dirt put on a shorter shock and offset bushings (and negative rise stem) and said it improved. That would imply to me that, not counting the stem, their preferred setup lowers the back end. While lower bb will help, won’t lower rear put more weight on the rear and hence make it even harder to get weight on the front? Kind of the opposite of what I thought – I’d been planning to try more air in the shock to bring my weight forward.

    Any ideas why lowering the rear might help?

    Brown
    Free Member

    Get forward, get low over the front, get your weight through the bars … all the usual stuff.

    Lower your bars, roll them forward – that’ll pull you towards the front.

    I’ve sometimes found that rolling my brake levers further down pulls me over the top of the bars more too.

    Try pushing your saddle forward. I find I sort of set my position when I’m descending based on it. I’m sure I read an article once where some DH pro talked about being surprised how much saddle position affected their standing position on the bike.

    hora
    Free Member

    Are you on the right frame size for your preference?..

    Brown
    Free Member

    Or do what Hora would and buy a new bike.

    hora
    Free Member

    Or do what Hora would and chose a frame on rider preference not the manufacturers recommended size chart and fine tune it..

    FTFY

    duir
    Free Member

    http://theteamrobot.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/zero-zero-length-stems.html

    Buy a tiny stem?
    Buy a longer stem?
    Buy some really wide bars?
    Buy the right size frame for your body rather than what is trendy?

    sideshow
    Free Member

    At 6’5″ you’d be hard pressed to find a frame that was too big for me, trend or no trend! Don’t think that’s the issue. It’s more that either (a) I push down on the bars like usual and all the squish in the fork just makes that push ineffective, or (b) I realise I should shift my weight further forward but don’t dare to for fear of flying over the bars, which somehow isn’t such an issue on the hardtail, I guess because I don’t need to shift forward to much on the latter.

    hora
    Free Member

    Sideshow in drag earlier

    sideshow
    Free Member

    At 6’5″ you’d be hard pressed to find a frame that was too big for me, trend or no trend! Don’t think that’s the issue. It’s more that either (a) I push down on the bars like usual and all the squish in the fork just makes that push ineffective, or (b) I realise I should shift my weight further forward but don’t dare to for fear of flying over the bars, which somehow isn’t such an issue on the hardtail, I guess because I don’t need to shift forward to much on the latter.

    Euro
    Free Member

    Buy a tiny stem?
    Buy a longer stem?
    Buy some really wide bars?
    Buy the right size frame for your body rather than what is trendy?

    Or try a neutral riding position for starters on this particular corner (whatever it looks like) and ride it a few times to get a feel for it. Maybe experiment with a bit of forward and rearward weight bias to see what works for you. I don’t know where the idea to ‘*really* weight the front on off camber corners’ comes from – putting too much weight on the front on an off camber corner sounds like recipe for a front wheel washout or at least running wide (not to say it’s not sound advice, just something i’ve not encountered before). The only time i really weight the front is on a bermed corner.

    I found my Stumpy Evo (FSR like your Enduro) a little odd at first when taking corners but discovered it liked to be steered from the hips. No idea why this is (not into geo/suspension characteristics etc) but it does work. I can’t explain how to do it in words sadly.

    fallsoffalot
    Free Member

    +1 euro

    RobHilton
    Free Member

    “Taking an off camber corner fast involves *really* weighting the front of the bike, right?”

    Why?

    As euro – stay balanced. Push outside foot down, push down on inside grip, keep looking to the vanishing point I’d normally the most you need to do. If very off camber pointing hips up the hill can help.

    sideshow
    Free Member

    Really? I kinda thought when my front slides out it’s because I’m not weighting it enough. F=uR so if there isn’t enough R then there isn’t enough F. You can afford to let the back wheel slide as long as the front keeps tracking. Sure I’ve read that written by someone known for riding well too.

    Rorschach
    Free Member

    Pin this to the stem

    Euro
    Free Member

    Nice slide mister!

    Really? I kinda thought when my front slides out it’s because I’m not weighting it enough. F=uR so if there isn’t enough R then there isn’t enough F. You can afford to let the back wheel slide as long as the front keeps tracking. Sure I’ve read that written by someone known for riding well too

    Sideshow, i know what bike you have but i don’t know much else. Need a video to see what we are dealing with here. Rest assured i’ll study the data and make a recommendation based on my findings.

    deviant
    Free Member

    Might not be the quote you’re thinking of but ‘King’ Kenny Roberts from Motorcycle Grandprix racing fame said:

    “No one ever lost the front on the throttle”

    Implying that the front only breaks traction when you ask too much of it like weighting it while braking and trying to steer at the same time….his philosophy was to brake hard on the straights then use the throttle to slide a Grandprix bike round the bends, effectively steering from the back….it came from his oval racing dirt track days in the U.S. and was new to Europeans who would trail brake into the bend and try to carry as much corner speed as possible often asking too much of the front tyre and crashing.

    Probably not relevant to this thread but a great theory from a great racer.

    fizik
    Free Member

    Stay neutral and lean the bugger in and then just hang on, my Lt 29er handles flat corners better than any other bike I have ridden, lots more grip, especially with a chunky monkey up front.

    funkrodent
    Full Member

    Reading this with interest. I’ll be building up a 2Souls Quarterhorse this weekend. Whilst it’s a hardtail it’s very much of the long and slack variety, and it’ll be my first 29er. It seems that a different steering approach is needed if you read the review below of it. All about weight forward and actually turning the bars, rather than just leaning, if I’m reading it correctly. Certainly more physical English is required..

    http://twentynineinches.com/2011/10/02/ride-report-2souls-cycles-quarterhorse-29er/

    RobHilton
    Free Member

    Interestingly, the QH didn’t steer at all by leaning or weight shifting – it only responded to actual steering input

    That sounds either:

    1) Awful

    or

    2) Bollox

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    “No one ever lost the front on the throttle”

    Love it. Seemed to be the answer to most things when I rode a motorbike. Bit of a wobble, running wide, etc… gas it! 🙂

    sideshow
    Free Member

    Going back to the OP’s (cough) cornering woes

    Would anyone disagree with this? If we’re trying to corner without drifting the rear (not always the case obviously 😉 ) then
    [list][*]If you have your weight too far back, the front slides out
    [/*][*]If you have your weight too far forward, the back slides out (easier to recover and more fun but possibly not the fastest cornering)[/*]
    [*]If your weight is just right then either you grip, or both wheels slide together. If you ride it out then nicely done, otherwise you were trying to take the corner too fast.[/*][/list]

    Obviously you might be too fast in the first two cases as well but you’d never know for sure because your weighting messed you up first.

    Anyway I’m finding my failure mode is usually front sliding out so assuming weight needs to come forwards right? Except that feels scary in case I hit a bump and take a dive over the bars.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    has anyone mentioned clip-in pedals yet?

    perhaps a little drastic, but they do allow you to move forward on the bike without falling off the pedals.

    ie, they won’t automatically fix the problem, but they might help with the whole ‘weighting the front’ thing.

    deviant
    Free Member

    Anyway I’m finding my failure mode is usually front sliding out so assuming weight needs to come forwards right? Except that feels scary in case I hit a bump and take a dive over the bars.

    This is what short stems and slack head angles are supposed to prevent.

    I had similar at a sandy Rogate-DH, was leaning to far off the back due to the steepness and of course the front was then running wide, folding/tucking etc….had to brave it and commit to moving a bit further forward on the bike, the result was the front could now dig in and allow me to steer.

    There is a happy medium where you should be riding mostly centred on the bike with fore and aft weight shifting only being done in extreme circumstances.
    I’m a fan of the short stem craze as I do feel it allows me to ride enough of the front for good grip without having that horrible over the bars feeling.

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    I suspect the problem you’re having is that you need to load the front of the bike in a downwards direction. The higher the bars relative to your centre of mass, the more difficult it is to keep that force downwards and the more the force you’re applying becomes an outwards force. This is even worse with a full-sus than a hardtail because before you enter the turn you’ll usually have more sag at the BB than at the bars, so it’s harder to get that downwards force onto the bars.

    The fortunate thing for you is that you’re so tall it should be fairly easy for you to adjust your technique and maybe your bike set-up to make it turn like you want. Think outside foot down, outside elbow high and inside hand down and strong, whilst looking round to the vanishing point. Push that inside hand down hard if it doesn’t turn/grip enough. With your outside foot down you’ll have the stability to really weight the front without being scared of exiting through the front door.

    RobHilton
    Free Member

    clip-in pedals…they do allow you to move forward on the bike without falling off the pedals

    😆 A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!11!! 😆

    What a load of crap

    Gotama
    Free Member

    Interestingly, the QH didn’t steer at all by leaning or weight shifting – it only responded to actual steering input

    As an owner of one I can confirm that it is indeed bollox.

    And funkrodent it is worth playing around with the chainstays. At 6ft 3 I find that it rides much better with the stays pushed all the way back. This is clearly contrary to what pretty much everyone on here, irrespective of height, will tell you not to do on a 29er.

    chiefgrooveguru
    Full Member

    You may find it helps to run your fork with less sag so that instead of you mostly compressing the fork when you push to initiate the turn you put that force into the tyre for maximum grip, whilst also minimising that falling forward feeling.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    Rob Hilton – Member

    What a load of crap

    well put sir.

    sideshow
    Free Member

    @deviant curiouser and curiouser. Wouldn’t a short stem and slack HA move your weight back not forward?

Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)

The topic ‘Getting weight over front of longer bike’ is closed to new replies.