What’s out there? Looking for something with reach over 480 in the XL frame and having a mind blank. Needs to be slack too, maybe 65/66 degrees. Last Fastforward came to mind but that’s too short in reach. Chromag Rootdown BA is one that fits the bill but is towards the spendy end and getting to the point where I would rather see what Swarf/BTR can do for me.

Mondraker Vantage R+? “only” 68 degrees though.

Forget the Plus and try a P7. Or a Swarf should be nice.

Long enough and slack enough for yer?

or in ‘Economy’ flavour

No XL size on the transmitter, and reach is only 450mm on the Lg.

How about a Genesis Tarn 490mm reach on the XL and designed for 120mm forks

Cheeky pic of my large framed build
[url=https://flic.kr/p/SiwLcN]Genesis Tarn[/url] by Matt Cotterill, on Flickr

Reverb and non-bent saddle have since been fitted!

Forget the Plus and try a P7. Or a Swarf should be nice.

29er Swarf has been done. Want to try Plus again now that some beefier rubber is around and with 40mm rims rather than 35 which were too narrow in my opinion.

Mondraker and Tarn are good calls. Will have a look at Sonder too. Edit – Sonder is way too short.

Carbon transmitter was my first thought but no XL.

Tarn looks well tasty.

Nicolai argon-GLF

That tarn looks great (ignoring the seatpost/saddle monstrosity)

Nicolai is ideal but it’s in the Chromag/BTR etc price category. Although given I’ve got a G13 my better half may not notice the additional bike with the GLF 😀

That genesis tarn just looks so right

2017 NS Eccentric cromo will take 27.5 plus up to 2.8″ I believe, reach is 460mm without fork sag, it’s a 65degree head angle with a 140mm fork.

Last Fastforward came to mind but that’s too short in reach.

A couple of friends have these (rode with them yesterday), they look so long the rider looks like he’s “steering from the back”.

Reminded me of this 🙂

Just had a look at that Kingdom bloody hell that’s long.

I like the look of it, but then I’m struggling to see the point – I assume thats frame only? You could get a good FS bike for that, and being that long I can’t imagine you’ll be picking your way through stuff. You’d need to budget for about 5 rear wheels per year.

^^^ it’s not that long. In fact it would be perfect if it wasn’t at that price where, personally, I would rather have a steel BTR/Swarf..

Based on my swarf which had a 490mm reach it makes it far more stable through the rough stuff without losing any of that hardtail magic that you either love or hate. They may be the cost of a decent fs bike but if I could only have one bike I would let my Nicolai G13 go and just have a hardtail. I suspect your view on this is also heavily biased to where you ride. Surrey hills is generally quite smooth so hardtails are great whereas smashing down long very rocky and rough descents, possibly not so much.

Whyte 901 or Spesh Fuse Fattie surely, if you want accessible not-break-the-bank choices?

I suppose if where you ride is fast and smooth with nice sculpted jumps it would be amazing.

Not rocky by me by any stretch but the braking bumps are horrific in places, I wouldn’t want to be approaching them much faster 😆

Whyte 901 or Spesh Fuse Fattie surely,

Well maybe, but since the 901 is only 650b and not plus whilst the Spesh Fuse is shorter than a short thing unless i get the 22 inch seatpost model it means neither are anywhere close 🙂