OK, I’ll get this out of the way first, I don’t ride much!
But I do enjoy riding & building my bikes, I have about 6 frames & only enough components for 3, so I rotate them. My original round tube Stiffee has been in the loft for a good few years now & I was actually thinking of buying either a new 26″ wheel frame or some 29″ suss forks to tempt me back out on the trails for the new year.
But as I have not ridden a bike in years that has made me think that the latest & greatest are actually an improvement should I just save my money & get out on the old girl again?

Your thoughts please.

Cheers.

I’m still riding my 2001 Stiffee and despite trying a few I haven’t found anything that rides any better than it does. Maybe the original is still the best eh ?

I remember when I bought the frame being told it may be to big for me, it’s a 19″ & I’m 6′, but all of my other frame excepting the Turner now feel small, maybe I just need to stretch out a little now I’m older, but longer TT’s seem to be the way these days.

stiffee is still a brilliant HT..
and as far as I know it was the first HT with a 66.5 HA….long time before the invention of the superslack-newschool-HTs..

HY design hasn’t moved on for years. That’s why, in order to generate new sales the bike manufacturers had to try and convince us that we needed a whole new wheel size so they could sell us something new and better…*

*No I’m not being entirely serious. Probably. However my 10 year old Stumpy is still the fastest bike I’ve ever ridden for playing in the woods.

I still remember that first orange Cove Stiffee I rode which made me make the Planet X Compo, then the 456, then the Summer Season, the Ragley Blue Pig, then the 456 Evo.

All progressive.

Natural extension is now the Titus Fireline Evo Ti.

Hardtails are progressing but bikes are great.

The original stiffee had fairly awful geometry but through clever marketing (at the right time) sold very well, ironically mainly to people who would never live up to the cleverly named Easton tube sticker . .
Some of us already rode way slacker/lower hardtails and understood the benefits way before Brant slung a leg over that first stiffee.
Hardtail frames haven’t moved on hugely, no. More blindly followed marketing to keep mtb manufacturers bank balances healthy.
Pmsl at a ti 29er being your idea of the natural extension of progression for hard tails BTW. Comedy gold!
😀