I know I am going to get stick for this, but just in case I get a sensible answer I thought I would ask.

I am off to Spain with Joyriders in a few weeks, and I have a the choice of taking a 6″ FS (Iron Horse 6 point with Wotans, so it must weigh in the mid 30’s) or my Dialled Alpine, and I am trying to work out which one would be best to take.

So I was wondering if anyone who has been riding with Joyriders before would care to comment on what bike they would take given the choice and why. As I don’t want to take the FS if the trails would be more fun with a HT, or vice versa.

Sounds daft, but have you asked them?

you still have time to edit Sapin into Spain…

fixed the title, opps, thanks sfb 😉

Yep I’ve asked them and they said either would be fine, so I was after some other opinions.

I think I am going to take my FS, however while it climbs OK, its a lot of metal to drag up a hill, so if the trails are more flowy/pumpy I am tempted to take my HT

I’ve been with them twice. 1st time i had a hard tail and rode it 3 days and hired a stumpy for the other 2 (major grin factor having never ridden a FS)

Took out my superlight the year after and loved it. The guide (Ian) the 1st year rode a marin quake and the 2nd year (nick) rode a santa cruz chameleon.

I think mark (guide at cerro macho) rides a stumpy and chameleon

why did you switch after 3 days to a FS? just fancied trying one or another reason?

yep.. a couple of the rides were better for my hardtail so chose that. I’d never ridden a FS before so hired 1 for 2 days to see what it was all about (plus the owner mentioned he thought i’d enjoy it more)

I wouldn’t go for anything heavy though – some of those climbs are absolute monsters.. we’re talking climbs of 2-3 hours! 🙂

Take the Alpine you will enjoy it more. Hopefully you will have revelations or better and wheels with a fairly strong rim and 2.2 tires.

All the rides are perfectly doable on a HT with 5″ fork and a decent wheelset/tires.

…Take slime tubes or Tubeless though, lots of prickly things.

I have Pikes, and decent mavic rims + 2.35 tyres. Mind you I reckon its still over 30lb’s in weight.

Thanks for your advice everyone.

rode my inbred and didn’t feel under-biked. might have ridden some stuff a bit quicker, but wasn’t suffering.

have a great time. they’re a great bunch out there. hope to get back there this year.

cool, thanks Del

Hi Rich, the full suss will be more comfortable and “faster”. But a heavy duty hardtail is useable out here (and a lot of fun!).

The climbs aren’t anything like 3hrs long (well not anymore anyway) – at most you are looking at 1 1/2 hrs, so a heavy bike it manageable (both mine weight 33lb plus). One or two days have very little climbing at all.

See you in just over a week 🙂

Take your Alpine, it will be fine and you will love every minute of it.
If you get a little lazy see if you can hire a full suss when you are out there.
Best of both worlds then.

I live in S/Spain and ride a HT some mates full suss. They are faster on the big rocks going down and I’m faster on the ups. We meet in the middle on the flats.

P.S. the weather is lovely here now 😀