Because I’m a helpful sort of person, I took a Ragley Ti out for what I’d say was a mostly non-technical ‘general trail bike’ sort of local ride this morning and thought about it. Full disclosure – I’m a pretty average rider, averagely fit, reasonably strong, I like climbs and descents and going along on wiggly things too. I’m not particularly good technically, but I live in the Peak and ride a lot locally, so I get by in a bumbly sort of way.
Anyway, I kind of ran a Blue Pig as a general trail bike for a while and although I loved the geometry, my build was around the 30lb mark and I got tired of dragging that weight up steep climbs, it’ll go up them fine, in a winching, tractor-like sort of way, it won’t do it in a hurry unless you’re a lot stronger than I am. It also felt sluggish on flatter terrain for the same sort of reason.
You can build a Ragley Ti to around 26lb with tough-ish trail components and the difference in feel on the trail is really marked. There’s a real snap and urgency to the Ti that the Blue Pig doesn’t have and it makes it really quite mad. I defy anyone with a soul not to thrash the thing senseless at every opportunity. It just wants to go fast.
The lack of weight makes it a viable all-dayer in a way that the Blue Pig isn’t – for me at least, because I’m too weak, though I’ve done 60-mile Peak rides on one – and so does the compliant, but not soft rear end. All that’s good and for me anyway, there’s nowt wrong with the riding position for general use either, though the low front end might feel odd at first. Pedals really nicely and directly too.
The only thing that ain’t great as a general bike is what it does to moderately technical trails – like this morning it demolished a sort of semi-techy, rocky singletrack descent, er, and it demolished it going up it. And at the top it sort of shrugged in a ‘is that all you’ve got way’. The same climb would have been quite ‘interesting’ on a short-travel hardtail, maybe a singlespeed one. And on moderately technical descents, it just sort of flies over things, pretty much as fast as you dare..
I guess what I’m saying – and I think it’s the best bike I’ve ever ridden – is that the bike’s so capable and also so aggressive that potentially you just anaesthetise moderate trails. But that aside, it works just fine.
Obviiously whether that matters to you or not is a personal thing. I sort of like riding being a bit challenging and normally I’d have ridden something like that on my singlespeed.
The trails I’m talking about, if it means anything to you, are up above Mossley/Hollingworth, a mix of moorland double and singletrack, but not particularly rocky or owt.
I don’t know if that helps or makes sense. I guess ultimately you can use pretty much anything within reason as a general trail bike as long as you can pedal it over the trails you want to to ride and it’s no-one else’s business what anyone else finds viable, but I guess I’m saying that in some scenarios, the bike’s almost much too good enough for me, anyway 😉
