On my local ride all the tricky bits that I sometimes can do and other times cannot are all climbs and never descents. Technical rooty climbs where traction is lacking or tricky rocks where you get stuck. They are the bit that I rate myself against.

I was interested that my new bike an Prophet is great and dead fast on the downhills but flounders when it comes to technical climbs. I have to sit right back otherwise it spins out on me. (I could probably do with a better rear tyre). The Prince Albert is so much better. Maybe as you can turn the power on straight away and none of it is going to disappear in the suspension.

For downhills the only thing that really holds me back is not having enough balls not the bike. My thoughts were that the PA and the Prophet were both great fun going downhill and these days with suspension most bikes can handle themselves pretty well but there never seems to be much focus on going up.

Which is the best bike for technical climbing as well?

Want a bike that climbs well? Get one.
Prefer going downhill? Get a bike suited to it.

Easy.
🙂

Interesting point, i suppose alot of people see going down as the fun bit so more emphasis put on this.

FWIW i would get a new rear tyre as my Prophet climbs very well

Most people are more interested in going downhill that's why. I quite enjoy clearing a techy climb but nowhere near as much as I do ragging it down hills.

By the way my Pitch is pretty good on techy climbs, seems to have great rear wheel traction (though maybe that's cos of my 16st bulk sat on it).

Just my point that all bikes are pretty good at going downhill but not all are good at going up. I have never felt myself held back by the bike when going down. Going up you notice straight away as you come to a grinding halt.

I also agree it seems the cost of the compromise.

The low front end and sharp geometry that makes a better climbing bike makes downhill harder work.

I often wouldn't mind a better bike for climbing to keep up with some fast mates, but then I wouldn't enjoy the downhills as much.

I think a travel adjustable fork is about as good as you can get to have the choice of a lower front end when you want.

By the way my Pitch is pretty good on techy climbs

Don't you find the ground clearance a bit limiting?

Just my point that all bikes are pretty good at going downhill

I don't know about that. I've ridden quite a lot of bikes that were not in the same league as my Pitch at going downhill. You could still get down most of the same stuff though I spose, just much slower and it was much less fun.

The Prophet does not have an adjustable fork so that makes it a bit harder. Downhill there is not much in it for the fun factor when descending with my Patriot, PA or Prophet except a bit of comfort and some extra error margin with the FS bikes.

I think you've answered your own question: It's skill, fitness and traction that make a bike go uphill; most (I know, not all) the traction comes from that rear tyre, and the rest comes from the rider. Designing bikes that give riders ease and comfort when using gravity as their main motor is much more profitable than telling your customers to do more execise and work harder at the non-fun bits.

That said, I wouldn't want to muscle a long travel freeride or DH machine uphill… I'd still go with the hardtail for pretty much everything.

It's possible because much of the focus these days is on riding at trail centres, both at home and abroad. That means that climbs are often either via uplift or not that technical, with the aim just being to get you to the top of the fun descents.

I find the climbing a lot harder than technical descents, plus I rarely ride at trail centres, so how well they go uphill is important with the bikes I use.

I find I have to sit right back to get traction on the prophet but this means that the space you have got to move about to push yourselves up rocks/ over roots is more limited. As I said above that explosive power you need sometimes gets sucked up by the suspension.

Just my point that all bikes are pretty good at going downhill but not all are good at going up.

Have you ever ridden a lightweight (like sub 22lb) XC race bike, with 80mm or less travel forks, skinny tyres, piddly brakes, flat narrow bars and a zero rise stem down a hill? I'd suggest you'd retract this statment!

Agreed that most "trail bikes" these days are designed more with a view to enjoying the downhills, but then most riders endure the ups to get to the downs. I'll always rather suffer slightly on a climb, in order to enjoy the downs more. That said, a grippy rear tyre can make the world of difference and turn a previous poor climber into an accomplished one!

The weak link in going uphill is me, not the bike.

surprised you don't find the prophet a good climber. i'd look at tyre and tyre pressure.

I've thought about this before.

I love going downhill and am OK at it but I am a poor climber. At my size – 6ft 6, 17 stone I'm never going to be a whippet. I have 2 bikes, one has 5.75" travel, the other 6".

I wonder if a hardtail would suit me better. I don't think it will slow me down much on the descents but it should help on the climbs

I suppose the example would be the beast in the Peaks or Cut gate. Not really that hard to get down without any dabs and razing it as fast as you can but cycling up, in my dreams, though I think I have made it up from the Langsett end with a few dabs.

A shorter travel bike would probably help a lot rockitman… No matter what the marketeers say, a 6" bike just doesn't climb as well as a good 4" one unless you lock it out and even then you're carrying the extra bulk unnecessarily.

Compared to my hardtail, my Remedy is an absloutely awesome climber.
It has so much more traction that it means I run out of energy way before it runs out of traction.
I keep trying steeper and steeper climbs just to see what it can do!

This whole 'buy one bike for climbing, another that's good at descending'….WTF how do these people get from A-B?

I think reviewers probably do put too much emphasis on descending… but that's entirely subjective. Lots of the recent (last 2-3 years) crop of AM / Trail bikes have been marketed by bike companies and written up by reviewers as all day suitable – verging on mis-selling if you ask me.

My HT is a bitch on any downhills with drops and jumps – rewarding when you get it right. 21" frame with a long top tube and circa 90mm forks. Climbs well though :D, and nothing compares to the laser guided feel through swoopy flowy sections of singletrack. Feels more like slalom skiing working from edge to edge

Which is the best bike for technical climbing as well?

http://www.james-walters.net/cleland/cleland_history.html

…but you gotta build one, you can't buy one. Here's a recent example based around a Giant NRS frame, side-by-side with an original:

'razzing' it down the beast is never easy! I've only ever done it at any real speed once (as in fast enough to be picking lines based on jumping the bigest rocks rather than rolling it and avoiding the bigest holes). After the first right hand corner its easy enough but that first straight had me shi**** myself and theres no-way I'd have the balls to comit to a fast line on that first corner.

*speechless* @ NRS abomination

^^
Now there's a bike that fell out of the ugly tree, bit every branch on the way down and then ended up being beaten soundly by the ugly chavs at the bottom of the tree.

The example of being able to ride down something but not up is totally flawed! You can ride down stairs on a road bike, but you can't ride (I don't count hopping as riding) up them on anything.

PP was pretty well spot on with his first comment! Most trail bikes, like their riders are designed to 'survive' the climbs and enjoy the descents. Try an XC race bike if you want to go up hills fast. Epic, Top Fuel, Anthem etc, they'll make most trail bikes seem rather sluggish.

+1 @wwaswas
There's a reason nobody rides these…

There's a reason nobody rides these…

People do ride them though, and there are a lot of arguments in favour of them over the much more race-oriented 'modern' mountain bike.

Ugly? Form follows function my friend.

An XC race bike would be rubbish on the stuff I am talking about as they are just too twitchy to be able to control easily on loads of rocks and roots.

I've got an NRS and for riding anything remotely steep getting your weight as far forward as possible is the key. You then just moderate your effort to match the traction available.

That bike with 3ft of steerer tube is forcing the riders weight right back over the rear wheel which might help traction on a road ride where everything's got to be doable in a car but for anything 'off road' steep you'd just end up doing a wheely.

DoctorRad – What are they like to ride then?

Make up your mind then!

If I'm going to ride up a technical climb I'll take my XC race bike, and accept it won't go down as well.

XC racers seem to do OK, perhaps we should re-define it as the perfect climbing bike for IT consultants and accountants…

njee20 – I see your point but I was thinking more about where you put the emphasis. There are some things you'll never be able to ride up but most of the stuff I ride is rideable. I just wonder if I would be better equipped with something that had more of an emphasis on climbing.

Would I enjoy my riding more if I took a bit of the pain out the climbing?

Would I still be able to fly down the roman road jumping off rocks and passing a good number of those riders who've just passed me on the climb up?

Would I be able to ride up things I currently can't or would I still have to give up cos I can't breath?

Or would I just be better going running every night for a couple of months and dropping a stone or 2?

Both my MTB’s have a downhill bias, shorter stem, wider more upright bar position, both are HT’s also and both will climb better than I’m capable of…

Maybe the trouble is the rider, fitness is just one aspect, but don’t assume that just because your plodding up a hill you don’t need to think, pick a line and shift your weight about, it takes as much concentration to clean a tricky climb properly as it does to ride Rooty DH singletrack, perhaps more…

If your tyres slip on wet roots, it’s your fault, not the bikes. You should have spotted them and either picked the correct line or shifted your weight to compensate, plus if your not finding the DH sections very challenging, do you need 6” of bounce weighing you down for the climbs?

Buy a cheap HT for winter and learn some basic trail craft…

A professional XC rider may be able to hop skip and jump over every root and rock and Steve Peat my be able to win a World Cup with 160mm rotors but thats not the point or maybe it is. Either we don't need these skill compensator's or we do cause we are crap. What is this thing about IT managers and accounts??

I find there's a difference between "technical" climbs and just steep climbs. My hardtail is a rocket up hills, but there comes a point where the technicalities mean my 6" full susser is better. Not only does it have better traction but I can "steam-roller" up rocky sections that I would have difficulty on otherwise (I'm no Martyn Ashton!). Also it is easier to stay sat down on my full susser and winch my way up. The annoyance is that the full susser is way more fun at the trail centres…except on the dull fireroad climbs where I dream about being on my hardtail.

Which is why you want a light XC bouncy bike…

Agree that hardtails are generally crap at technical climbing.

GEDA I don't really understand what you want? There is always a compromise – I bet a prophet climbs just fine tbh. If you don't and it bothers you then get something that climbs better, but accept that it might not be as good downhill.

Which is why you want a light XC bouncy bike…

…and so the quest for "one-bike-for-all" fails 😆

@GEDA – my first "Cleland" is still being built up. This from a correspondent who's been riding them for years:

"The ethos of the Cleland is that of a competition trials mototbike, where getting off and walking is not allowed. It is in fact a trials motorbike minus the engine.

When climbing you lean forwards, just like a mountain bike, but your elboes bend further until your chest almost touches the handlebars. The Cleland NRS has a stem that can rotate 90 degrees, forwards and down, for long climbs and headwinds. It is when climbing out of the saddle that the Cleland is totally different. You stand upright and lean towards the hill to balance the weight between the wheels. (The torque reaction trying to lift the rear wheel is much easier to control on a cleland). The Clelands are good climbers, but out of the saddle, the NRS version is exceptional and can climb 44%+ incline (rises 44mm for every 100mm traveled). I'am still trying to work out why this is.

All the Clelands main features are designed to keep it going no matter what.

* High bottom bracket (so the peddals don't hit the ground)
* Short chainstays to keep the rider's weight over the rear wheel
* 650B or 700C wheel size (for maximum grip/minimum rolling resitance)
* Short distance from handlebars to saddle (this is more to do with comfort and keeping your body weight off the arms)
* Massive mud clearance (so it won't clog)
* Stayless mudguards and mudflaps (To keep rider and bike clean above the knee, and front whhel mud off the drive chain. Also so they won't clog and to stop twigs from snagging)

other important features are:

*low tyre pressures for (for maximum grip/minimum rolling resitance & comfort)
*Sprung saddle (for comfort though suspension does a better job).
*High handlebars to keep your weight rearward, off your arms and allow for swift adjustments of body mass.
*A light and controllable front end that can easilly be lifted out of wheeltraps, over logs etc, and doesn't dig into mud or sand.
*reliable, progressive, and mudproof brakes.
*drive train protection from mud comming off the rear wheel.

The Cleland NRS has some new features that are being evaluated, like the Shimano Inter8 hub gears that can be changed between any ratio instantly, even when climbing a steep hill.

The Cleland bicycle more 'alternative' than its tradditional looks would suggest.

You can see the steering geometry details on the 'Highpath' drawing."