In a somewhat rare event for me I find myself with some time to kill, so I thought I’d write down some musings on my 2souls Quarterhorse. I’ve had the t’Orse since September 2014 and built since November 2014. With a little over a year I’ve made it through the honeymoon period (no thanks to 2souls (more of that later).
Here it is in sunnier days.

and less sunnier days.

Sometime in 2013 one of my riding buddies bought one, which I duly dented (fortunately non-fatal) on a test run and decided it was a very nice arrangement of steel pipes. At the time I was looking to replace a 26” Ti 456, but the price of the 2souls as what would have been my first 29er was just too juicy and I settled for the significantly cheaper Cotic Solaris.

The Solaris build was built light and singlespeed, but that didn’t last. It became increasingly chunky and got 1×9, until the day came when the trifecta of want, and two perceived limitations of the Solaris was enough for me to pony up to the money required for the Quarterhorse. My biggest difficultly was colour choice. I ended up with this.

As far as I’m aware, 2Souls is two or three blokes with regular day jobs. This showed. Their communication was slow, and if it wasn’t for people having already successfully bought from them before, I would have become twitchy about being swindled, but that turned out not to be the case. I waited nearly 4 months, but it did arrive. Straight away, the head tube badge was not mounted straight. On closer inspection, one of the holes was threaded and the bolt wouldn’t bite. 2souls were pretty good in responding to me about this and we agreed a way forward. – They sent me some larger bolts and a thread tapping tool and a (too large) jersey by way of apology. Disappointing, but it won’t affect the ride.

Later, I found my stiff-from-new BB was the result of an ovalised BB shell after the Shimano one they fitted dies in three months. 2Souls offered solution to this was to ream the BB tube, a solution that I felt was unsatisfactory for PF92, since the internal bore was already the right size, just the wrong shape. Reaming the ID of the tube would just have resulted in less grip on the BB cups, from a BB standard that is already notorious for creaking. My chosen solution for this was metal cupped BBs to resist the deformation of the bearing from the BB tube.

And so the fun started. I’ve never, to this day, ridden a bike with such short chainstays. With a pike on the front and probably aided by a fairly slack seat tube angle, I found wheeling off the back was a simple matter of pedalling hard uphill without leaning forwards. No matter, I’m a ‘ride the fork’ kind guy, so it was pretty easy to adapt to. Within weeks, I’d dropped the bars as low as they could go and fitted a dropper post. Within 6 months, those same chainstays were so widely spaced they allowed me to get wide carbon rims and 2.4 tyres in. I became aware I was taking it to some of the places I would previously have taken my full susser and riding similar lines.

Yet, it is still a hardtail with all of the limitations, and a moderately heavy one at that. It’s only about 1 lb lighter than my full-susser, which has 125mm more travel at the back, with similar sized tyres. Yes, its 853, but its designed to be strong and robust – It’s not a magic carpet ride, but neither is it ‘dead’ at the back end like, say, my old steel on-one 456. It still hooks up at the back on square edges, both climbing and descending. Mistimed sitting on choppy ground still kicks you up the arse. Only tire size and pressure help to mute the high speed death rattle of choppy mountainside descending. Steppy, bouldery descending still requires enough leg suspension that at the bottom, shitting-dog-leg remains a reality.

The geometry and build of this thing (or indeed, my own build) is never going to win me any XC races, but that’s not what this bike is about. Despite this, it’s possible to shift it along at fair clip if you’ve got the beans to spare, and big, low pressure tyres and short stays can get you up technical climbs better than you’d expect as long as you remember to mind the front with appropriate weight shifts.

Pointed down, it carries a feeling of un-earned composure, that un-panicked forward looking ‘I-know-what-to-do-here’ collectedness that 29 inch wheels seem to provide, yet it is not a lazy, slow turning bike. Equipped with almost-comedy 800mm Raceface atlas bars, and my own long arms and 14st, its happy enough, and stiff enough, to be bossed around to the point of wheel tuck and high side me once or twice during the acclimatisation period.
Extra care is required in tree lined, narrow singletrack to avoid clipping big bars and landing on the top tube with ones plums.

As Barney of Singletrack towers said of the Swarf Spline, ‘the front writes cheques that the back can’t cash’. This is also true of the Quarterhorse. One of the reasons for this is that combined with a dropper post, the extremely sloped top tube and seat mast just disappear, creating the feeling of uncluttered space when riding the sort of terrain where ’throwing shapes’ is an actual necessity. This results in unexpected speed over rough ground. But there it is again – It’s a hardtail and the back doesn’t yield. I’am about to install a rear tyre of the double down/APEX/supergravity type, because frankly, at the speeds even a pleb like me can achieve, I can’t always ride light enough with the back in all possible scenarios and the robustness of a tyre like this should, I hope, give me some margin of error that doesn’t result in yet another tubeless tyre plug. I expect a more competent rider could lessen this.

I am very fond of this bike. It’s not built to be a mile munching xc bike or a bullet proof dirt jumper. It’s designed to be a fun trail bike, capable of riding around everywhere, with an emphasis on the more technical end of riding and the robustness that style requires. In this, it excels.

I should think you’re unlikely to set any Strava records with it, because even though it’s an excellent descending hardtail, it’s not a full susser. It brings a sense of involvement and infectious fun that mostly, my ridiculously good full suspension bike has taken away from my local trails, without it being a bone shaking rigid affair that some people seem to crave.

Given current geometry trends, I should think there’s scope to steepen the seat tube and slacken the head angle a touch more and I plan on putting a slack-set in it at some time this year. Probably the one thing I would like this bike to have is to feel like the Ti 456 at speed in choppy ground. The 456 went silky above a certain speed, like water flowing over rocks. I can only assume this was compliance of the back end. I look at the Niner ROS9, a frame that seems to be built with similar intentions, with its smaller stays and wonder if it has a more compliant back end.

Thanks for the post, interesting read. Sounds a little like how I felt about my old mmmbop. Eventually I got rid as it was writing cheques the rider couldn’t cash and I woke up face down with a mouth full of mud and broken ribs / collar bone. These type of bikes a great fun if you have the skills to get the most from them.

Tl:Dr.

I have a nice slim jim so I know how you feel about the bike. I love mine and have never ridden such a fast and fun and nimble 29er.

I’ve never, to this day, ridden a bike with such short chainstays.

Out of interest, they have a range of adjustment, what do you run yours at?

I run mine at the longest setting, makes a surprising (to me) amount of difference to the way the bike handles depending on where the sliders are set. Great frame and beautifully made (or mine is ;-)) but I find it too short in the front centre for me at just over 6ft 3 (more torso than legs) on an XL. Will be selling mine shortly if anyone is interested, about 6 months old and same colour as OP’s bike. Sorry, always someone on a bike review popping up with a FS ad!

I always run mine at the shortest and always wheelie everywhere.

I had to look up the actual measurement, but I run the dropouts in the middle position, which comes in at 423mm.

I agree, even at 6ft, it’s a little short on the front centre. I run a 70 mm stem on mine. I find myself eyeing things like the Last hardtail on here a few weeks ago.

Got one of these also. Fantastic bike (and great review by the way, really interesting and well written). Agree that the reach is a little short, compensated with a 60mm stem and the saddle slammed back as far as it’ll go. Thing about this bike is it is monumentally capable and incredible fun to ride. For a big bike it ain’t half nippy (so much so that I have considered a longer stem to slow it down a bit) and it pops off the slightest lip with consumate ease. It’s a real pleasure to ride (me and the hound will be out on it shortly) and it’s definitely a long-termer in my shed

Thanks. I do run mine with the saddle slammed back too, but after running it for a while with a 60mm stem. I’m on the verge of accepting that the front centre is still too short for my monkey arms. I have a 65 and 70 in stock, so I’ll be doing some tweaking fairly soon.

@Rorschach
Here’s your TL;DR: It’s a steel bike with a hole in the seat tube. He had some problems with the supplier which he is annoyed about. He thinks he likes it, but probably should have bought a PP Shan instead!

Nah. They only do the Shan in dwarf wheels.

Interesting read OP, having bought Gotama’s QH frame a couple of months ago.

I’m still tinkering with setup on mine but would agree about how short it feels, even in XL and me at only 6’2″. However, I quite like the shortness so far, perhaps as I’ve ridden it exclusively SS with a 140mm fork so steeper climbs have been ridden out of the saddle rather than seated and forward over the front wheel. The shortness feels like a bonus pointing downwards.

I think it’s a keeper, but I keep looking at the Yelli Screamy frame hanging in the garage thinking it makes a more rounded do everything bike than the QH. Hmmm… Dropper and gears to be fitted next.

Question for other owners: How is your leather downtube wrap doing? Seems like the regular soaking / mud covering / hosing down can’t be good for it, but removing it seems wrong.

I’ll bump this thread just for the hell of it. The QH has been in the shed for much of the summer, elbowed out of the way by the big full susser. But having done a fair amount of damage to said FS in the peaks – and with the onset of real winter – it’s time for the QH to come out to play. Looking forward to blasting round some trails.

Interestingly, the last time I was out on it I took it down Blue Pig, Lumb Falls and Pecket Well descents around Hebden (steep and very technical) and it handled them with aplomb.

Regarding the top tube length, in an XL it’s 640mm (which is far from short). However the XL Kona Honza claims 685!! Anyone ridden the Kona and the QH and, if so, how do they compare?

Dyffers – I’ll post on the state of mine when I haul it out of the shed on Saturday. Suspect I may decide to lose it in truth, must be adding to the weight, particularly when drenched..

Funkrodent – It’s not so much the top tube but the reach which is very short. From memory (could be way off here) with a 140mm fork it works out at about 420mm on the XL. It’s personal preference but for me it was fun when you were messing around trying manuals or riding flatter trails but when you start hitting rougher stuff at pace it just felt like it was always trying to throw me over the bars. Much happier now on a hardtail with a 490mm reach.

Dyffers – Good to hear you’re enjoying it albeit I see that was posted a while back now.

Missed this thread first time round, really interesting, have looked at these myself. Thanks for resurrecting!

Interesting stuff. I run a 70mm stem on mine (albeit it is 16 degree rise which makes it effectively more like a 60mm). Just for the hell of it I decided to compare reach and effective top-tube with the XL Kona Honzo (long, aggressive 29er 685 tt, 510 reach) and my XL Vitus Sommet (quite long, 160mm beast, 640tt, 470 reach). XL QH is 640tt and 430 reach.To cut a long story short, when you subtract reach from effective tt, both the Vitus and Kona have 170mm sat behind the bottom bracket, whereas the QH is 210mm. To me that means a more centred riding position, which is of course beneficial with slacker bikes as you need to get weight over the front wheel without being too stretched out.

Not sure what all this means, hopefully somebody who knows what they’re talking about can enlighten me. In the meantime having spent the last few months bouncing around on a very capable (much more capable than me anyway) big bike, I’m looking forward to shooting the breeze with the ‘Horse. I’ll report back in due course, looking forward to it..

It’s me, the OP here. Funny how old threads pop up occasionally.

Most of this year I’ve been putting in 85% of my ride time on the QH. With so much time on it, I’ve mostly crystallised my thoughts.

I totally agree with Gotama, on fast steeps it feels like it wants to kick me over the bars. The only way to combat this is to bring the bars higher, which affects its climbing prowess in a negative way. If it had a longer front-centre, you could get lower and behind the bars which would deal with both the wandery steering when climbing and the ‘kicking over the bars’ feel. Reach is 420 on my large QH, so it must have been bigger on Gotama’s.

So, you compensate with technique. Bars have to be high to deal with the OTB issue, so on tough and steep climbs, my chest drops forwards and my elbows bend to get weight over the front. This is an accentuation of ‘standard’ climbing posture.

This position is exactly what I do when descending too. With the bars a bit higher and the issue of being thrown over the bars mitigated by it, you now have to work harder to get weight on the front for front wheel grip.

With a less than optimal front-centre length, there really isn’t much bike in front of me when assuming the position I describe above. My face is over and forward of the stem, and I’ve just this week put a 2 degree slackset in it to get the front wheel into the terrain ahead just a bit earlier before the rest of me arrives. Given the increased stack height of the headset and the slight drop of the head tube because the forks are positioned further from vertical, my bars should roughly be in a similar position, although I’ll have to see if moving the steerer back in the top cup back makes the front-centre feel even shorter. I’ve also pushed out the dropouts to their longest setting. This suits the more technical climbing I do traction wise, and doesn’t seem to have slowed down its turn in too much anyway.

Honestly though, I think this is a patch that will only improve the situation a bit. The solution to what I’m looking for is a frame with the appropriate reach. The only reason I’m still trying to improve the horse right now is that I don’t have the cash to replace it with some thing else and until I do, its my only hardtail to ride.

Took the QH for a spin around Cannock at the weekend. Had forgotten what a good bike it is. Gripped superbly on Cannock’s sometimes skitterish surface, corners on rails, climbs well (maybe a slight tendency for the front wheel to wander, but dropping the wrists countered it), pops and hops at will and blasts the descents. Quicker than I’ve ridden Cannock in ages and I cleaned a feature that I’ve not done for ages (for those who know Cannock, the devil’s staircase steppy switchback bit) even on the big bike.
Now the QH is being compared to a long, low, slack 160mm travel FS, so it’s not exactly apples with apples, but I had forgotten what a blast the bike is. Didn’t find any real issues with the reach (albeit with 80mm stem, which didn’t seem to effect the handling, sharp as but still stable) and I’m just shy of 6’4″ (albeit of the long-legged variety). Granted a little bit more body English is required over the front, but that’s the case with bikes with longer front centres. It’s good for technique anyway. There are a couple of quite steep shoots and it had no problems with those. Will have to wait to get it on real steep, techy terrain. That said I’ve taken it on very steep, techy stuff in Hebden in the past and its performed with aplomb, as it did at the ard rock last year come to think of it.
All in all a great bike. I’m looking forward to taking it out again asap 😀

To cut a long story short, when you subtract reach from effective tt, both the Vitus and Kona have 170mm sat behind the bottom bracket, whereas the QH is 210mm. To me that means a more centred riding position, which is of course beneficial with slacker bikes as you need to get weight over the front wheel without being too stretched out.

I’m not sure I understand / agree with this unless you are suggesting that the size is better on the Vitus & Kona.

Long front ends have upped my confidence by miles so I’m all for them.

Funk rodent – Good to hear. I have a damaged hand at the moment, but it looks like I will have to put a 75 or 80 mm stem on mine to correct for the increased headset height.

thepodge – Member
To cut a long story short, when you subtract reach from effective tt, both the Vitus and Kona have 170mm sat behind the bottom bracket, whereas the QH is 210mm. To me that means a more centred riding position, which is of course beneficial with slacker bikes as you need to get weight over the front wheel without being too stretched out.
I’m not sure I understand / agree with this unless you are suggesting that the size is better on the Vitus & Kona.

Long front ends have upped my confidence by miles so I’m all for them.

No worries, my point is I guess that the QH seems to have a better balance as to how weight is distributed fore and aft of the bb. As I believe the idea of correct positioning on an mtb is to have the centre of the saddle roughly aligned with the centre of the chainstays (mid-point between bb and rear axle) the QH with 33% of the tt measurement sat behind the bb is better placed to deliver this (the other two are pretty much 25% and 75%). Theoretically this should result in better handling and better climbing, as well as ensuring that when in the “attack” position on the bike you’re more likely to have the 60/40 weight distribution than if you’re maybe being pulled too far forward by a long front-centre. Now in fairness, this applies more to hardtails than FS bikes, as I understand it with FS you want slightly more weight front of the bb to counter the damping effect of the rear suspension.

At this point I will freely admit that I am an amateur and that this is merely my own musings and speculation. Happy for someone who actually knows what they’re talking about to pull this apart.

As per my last post above, riding the QH at the weekend was an absolute joy. So, so capable for a hardtail, turns in quickly but always in a controlled fashion, glides over ruts and rocks (even the famous Cannock Chase braking bumps) and is fast and confidence inspiring on the descents.

As a further aside, talking recently with a friend who is a far more competent mountain biker than I am, he reckoned that one of the commonest issues he sees with other riders is them setting their weight too far back, thereby losing control of the front wheel. That being the case it could be argued that bikes with more reach are forcing riders to push more weight forward, thereby having the effect of improving handling and control through better body position..

Science Officer – sorry to hear about the hand, hope it sorts itself out soon. My QH rocks with an 80mm stem. Cannock is windy as hell in places (and lots of trees so accuracy and flickability are key). I was concerned that with 80mm it’d wallow. Far from it!

I believe the idea of correct positioning on an mtb is to have the centre of the saddle roughly aligned with the centre of the chainstays

No to the above, yes to the below… as far as I am concerned.

As a further aside, talking recently with a friend who is a far more competent mountain biker than I am, he reckoned that one of the commonest issues he sees with other riders is them setting their weight too far back, thereby losing control of the front wheel. That being the case it could be argued that bikes with more reach are forcing riders to push more weight forward, thereby having the effect of improving handling and control through better body position..

Been thinking about this whole “Reach” thing and the general trend towards looong bikes a bit more, musings really.

So the question is, to what extent is the length of bikes actually a benefit? Particularly with hardtails. And at what point does too much length become a hindrance?

Obviously bikes with longer reach and slacker head angles mean that steep, rocky descending is theoretically easier. But when I’m going down steep and rocky stuff, one of the key factors is the ability to get that front wheel up and over stuff, and – in the case of drops – up long enough to get the back wheels over the edge before the front starts to plummet.

Now, all things being equal, a bike with long reach is going to be harder to get the front wheel up on than one with shorter. And a bike that throws your weight more forward of the bb is going to be likewise. On a big 160mm FS I can see that this is less of an issue as the fork will blatter over rocks and the suspension will forgive a lack of front wheel technique, but on a hardtail there is more of a requirement to get it right.

In addition looking at the geo specs of the Honza and the QH, the Honza has the same chainstays all through the sizes (the QH’s change depending on frame size). So a bike with a reach of 425 has the same 415mm chainstays as one with a reach of 510mm. That’s nearly 10com of difference. Given that the smallest changes in geometry and alignment can have a huge difference, the S and XL Honzas might as well be different bikes as far as I can see..

I have a Honzo so I’ve looked at the geo chart a few times and noticed a few anomalies, in fact there are quite a few bikes that don’t match their internet numbers so I wouldn’t rely on it too much.

Longer front ends give you more room to move meaning you don’t have to be quite so subtle when moving around to weight the front & rear. I find I need to move around for grip & control a lot more than I need to lift the front end so its a trade off I’m happy with.

Everyone is different so preference and riding style dictates when too much reach becomes a hindrance.

Not sure what your point is about the difference between a small and an xl. Just because the Honzo has the same rear but different front doesn’t mean it’ll feel any more different to a QH which grows in proportion between sizes. Plus doesn’t matter what the proportional changes are, you’re never going to get a small and XL to feel the same as each other.

Oh and the Honzo has sliding droputs so you can lengthen the chainstays by 15mm

Morning. OP here again,

I have no basis of reference with Honzo’s and such so I’ll stay out of that, but I thought I’d just drop an update.

Rather later than planned last year I put a -2degrees slack-set in the ‘Orse. Having the delay due to a hand injury was actually a good thing, because it meant that Works Components actually released the -2 degrees headset in the EC44-EC44 configuration required to make it all work. The stack height and angled steerer DID shorten the reach and push the bar height up, and bar height in particular came up higher than I expected. After a couple of test runs it was obvious the front was too high with the new slacker front. Oddly, climbing was barely any worse. However, descending was significantly poorer because the bars were high enough that getting sufficient weight on the front was a terrifying experience. The front was vague and had poor bite, resulting in running wide on corners within insufficient grip and poor response. I couldn’t bring it back on line because I couldn’t get low enough centrally and weight the bars enough at the same time.

The result is I’ve gone from a 0degrees 70mm stem to a 8degrees 80mm stem. The 8degree stem is also inverted to drop the bar height, but still results in a stem the points upwards slightly.

I know dahlings. How achingly un-enduro on both counts. How can I even bear to be seen out with it? Here’s a picture so you can judge.

But, there really is quite a marked difference for such a small variation. It’s completely eliminated the vague descending and lack of recovery, and allowed me to detect some of the aspects of the slacker head angle that I was looking for.

There is now more wheel in front of me which is what I was after. It may be a relatively small lengthening, but in terms of my nervous systems response time relative to my travel speed its allowed some more confidence and given a more stable feeling front end, and firm up a couple of the impressions about slack head angles that I originally noticed when I demoed a Cotic Rocket Max in the autumn last year. I’ve not read about the things I’m going to mention, so maybe it’s just me?

It’s a bit like cheating. With the Rocket Max descending, it was like I had a second chance on every steering input I made. Get it a bit off the first time around? No problem, there’s still time to correct it. This is plain weird. Traditional head angles punish imprecision straight away and there’s no coming back once the consequences are in effect. Not so with the slacker head angle. It’s like being in a video game and being able to replay a section if you stuff it up, but in real time. The RocketMax had this in spades and whilst the QH is some way off being that slack, there is an element of it present. Of course, this is not all attributable to the slacker head angle, it’s a function of weight distribution on the slacker front end that’s further forward. I think this is a great thing for technical riding.

Technical climbing. Slacker means wibbly wobbly, lighter front end and see-sawing left and right apparently. Well, yes I suppose it stands to reason. Pointing upwards is always going to push weight distribution rearwards, but I’ve not found this to be any worse than before I messed with the head angle. Please understand this in the context of a boggo standard trail hacker. If you’re concerned about going as fast as you can up hills my comments here probably don’t apply to your circumstances or requirements.

There appears to be a one clear advantage I’ve isolated from the slacker head angle that I really wasn’t expecting when climbing. See that steppy root? That square edged rock step-up? When lifting the front wheel up, I’m finding it gets further onto and over the step before the rear wheel needs lifting. That means that when I shift forwards at the crux point to pull the rear of the bike up, the front is further over, and sometimes clear of the obstacle and I can get weight and momentum further over the lip, which translates to the whole affair being more stable and less effort (IMO). I’m surprised by this, but again, for technical riding I think this is a good thing. I found this riding up some big old, well-spaced limestone steps up to the summit in this picture.

What’s becoming apparent to me generally is that there is another approach to technical trail riding and having fun than traditional short, upright ‘poppy’ bikes that trials riders and dirt jumpers like. It seems to me that the new skool geometry is more optimised for longer distance trail riding (compared to dirt jumpers!) with technical interest and descending bias, rather than inherently unstable, uber responsive bikes where skills over a short distance matter more. I have noticed on the QH, since one needs to accentuate weight onto the front of the bike, that my upper body works more and it’s a more physical riding style (ergo fun in my book). It’s no biggy for me, since I’m bigg-ish and strong-ish, but not everyone is like me, and those who are on the less fit side, or perhaps lighter built on top may feel this effect more than I do. It’s certainly not for everyone.

My musings will continue I am sure, it’s fairly early days with its new configuration.

Also, something that was also a surprise for me is what the head angle on the QH actually is. 2 souls quote 67.5 degrees with a 140mm fork and I’ve never thought to question it. However, what with a new slack-set experiment and all, I measured it at 67.5 including the slack-set adjustment. Perturbed, I measured this in multiple ways and had a friend measure it completely independently without any input from me and his conclusions were the same. 67.5 degrees with the slack set. Hmm. On further examination, I’ve found that my rear tyre is 7-8mm taller than the front and I lack the trigonometric expertise to calculate the difference this makes to the head angle over the wheel base, but I shouldn’t think it makes 2 degrees difference. Given my experiences with two souls (not brilliant) in the past, and the fact that I’ve no fixed objective in this particular experiment, I’ve not bothered contacting them about it, but if any of you get this far through my ramblings, I’d be interested to see what your measured head angles actually turn out to be compared to those quoted by the manufacturers. 67.5 ish in this picture (pre untrendy stem installation).

Interesting read. There was someone on bike radar (I think) who put a longer stem on their bike to aid front wheel grip on their slack frame.

I’ve measured my bikes after fitting angled headsets and they all seem to have roughly the expected results at the head angle but the BB height seems to be all over the shop compared to geo charts.

Interesting read. I am a little confused though. Surely if you push the front wheel out further in front of the headtube then the front end height should drop, assuming the fork length stays the same?

With respect to the head angle it always bugged me that it didn’t look as slack as it was supposed to be when looking at the bike side on so it’s interesting that you find that the case. That said I think the aesthetic is skewed by the short front centre.

Angle headsets generally have external bearings top and bottom so I guess its this increase that has caused the front end to be higher. Basically the top of the head tube is a bit lower but the top of the headset is a lot higher.

Gotama – yes, the effect of the stack height of the headset is greater than the effect 2 degrees has on the drop of the front of the bike. Also, the entire fork, including the steerer is canted back by 2 degrees, and that points the stem and bars higher up too.

^^^ ah I see.

I’ve found that my rear tyre is 7-8mm taller than the front and I lack the trigonometric expertise to calculate the difference this makes to the head angle over the wheel base, but I shouldn’t think it makes 2 degrees difference.

It’s worth about 1/3 of a degree.

Thank you Mr engineer.

Not sure what your point is about the difference between a small and an xl. Just because the Honzo has the same rear but different front doesn’t mean it’ll feel any more different to a QH which grows in proportion between sizes. Plus doesn’t matter what the proportional changes are, you’re never going to get a small and XL to feel the same as each other.

Oh and the Honzo has sliding droputs so you can lengthen the chainstays by 15mm

See this is the thing that has always bugged me. When they design a bike the relationship between chainstay length and bike performance is a key factor. Broadly speaking, the shorter the chainstays in relation to the front triangle the livelier/poppier the bike will be and conversely the longer the more planted/better climbing etc. As I understand it designers spend a lot of time on this aspect (obviously it all segues with geometry etc as well). Point is a Small frame with 138mm chainstays (to pick a number at random) is going to behave very differently to an XL frame with 138mm chainstays. The small will be more planted, less poppy than the XL. Which doesn’t make sense to me as surely each size in the range should have the same ride characteristics?

With the QH (and a few others, Norco do it as well), the chainstay lengths increase with frame size, meaning that the relation between the two stays broadly the same.

I’m not saying its better or worse, just that with chainstay lengths being the same across the range a Small will behave very differently to an XL.

I’m not 100% sure about the head angle either (not that I have the equipment or expertise to measure it properly). All I do know is that I can blat it downhill and it’s pretty good on the ups too. Only issue is on the rolling/technical flats where you can get blatted up the backside, but then that’s hardtails for you I guess!

And a question for the hive if I may. Is it poossible to fit an internally routed dropper on the QH? I’m assuming that the bloody great big hole at the bottom of the seatpost – though not intended for that purpose – would probably suffice..

Yes, it would work but the cable routing to get to that point would be a bit messy as all the guides are on the top tube so you’d have to use zip ties or some alternative on the downtube.

If you’re buying a new dropper why not just get a fox transfer or lev with the cable static at the post or a magura?

I run a KS Lev on mine, although in the early days it was a reverb, which was also fine.

If I may ask a question too… I currently have mine with 140mm Revs. If I wanted to stick some 29er Plus forks on, would 120 be the way to go?

funkrodent – See this is the thing that has always bugged me. When they design a bike the relationship between chainstay length and bike performance is a key factor. Broadly speaking, the shorter the chainstays in relation to the front triangle the livelier/poppier the bike will be and conversely the longer the more planted/better climbing etc. As I understand it designers spend a lot of time on this aspect (obviously it all segues with geometry etc as well). Point is a Small frame with 138mm chainstays (to pick a number at random) is going to behave very differently to an XL frame with 138mm chainstays. The small will be more planted, less poppy than the XL. Which doesn’t make sense to me as surely each size in the range should have the same ride characteristics?

With the QH (and a few others, Norco do it as well), the chainstay lengths increase with frame size, meaning that the relation between the two stays broadly the same.

I’m not saying its better or worse, just that with chainstay lengths being the same across the range a Small will behave very differently to an XL.

I’m not 100% sure about the head angle either (not that I have the equipment or expertise to measure it properly). All I do know is that I can blat it downhill and it’s pretty good on the ups too. Only issue is on the rolling/technical flats where you can get blatted up the backside, but then that’s hardtails for you I guess!

Yes and no and yes and maybe…

I broadly agree that a bike should increase in all dimensions as it goes up in size but how do you know an xl feels the same to someone 6.6 as a small does to someone 5.5? you can’t.

I’m also not convinced that too many designers spend too much time on chainstay relationship, we’ve seen a lot of people adopt Boost so they can shorten the back end. if it gets much shorter without steepening the seat angle we might as well be riding unicycles. After all shorter is “better” isn’t it? and when I say better I mean better marketing.

All I know is that bigger / longer bikes make me happier when riding. All this X bike feels poppy, Y bike feels planted only works for the poppy and planted bit of trails. I dont want a poppy bike when I need planted and visa versa so its all the best compromise.