Rigid mountain bikes

Simply not true. A bike weighing 2kg less will in no way be “significantly” faster.

Maybe not on a 20 mile Sunday ride but on a bike packing trip where your legs and body are tired, having a 1kg tent vs a 3kg tent will make a big difference to me when cycling/pushing up a big hill.

But as above, I think a lot of weight different is in the forks. A steel bike with a carbon fork will not be 2kg heavier.

stripping a frameset down now and then and sluicing it through will minimise or eliminate that.

Sounds like a lot of effort for something I don’t see any benefits from.

But this isn’t a thread about steel vs other inferior materials.

Thanks for your input so far. Any more suggestions?

I love both my Pace HTs.

RC627 with 140mm up front, for the lumps and jumps, and …

RC127 Surly rigid forks, 2.25″ tires on 35mm rims, MicroShift AdventX. A great bike for going a long way through the Moors and Dales. Plans of bike packing are forming… T

Not off the shelf but pair a yeti arc frame with a carbon fork? Reckon that’d be a fast grountain bike 😜

Not off the shelf but pair a yeti arc frame with a carbon fork? Reckon that’d be a fast grountain bike 😜

I’m surprised that there aren’t a lot of off the shelf options. I guess the rise of gravel bikes has killed off the market.

I guess it’s too much to ask for a colour matched front fork unless it’s black 😢

What rigid form would be suitable for a 140mm forked big al?

A fat bike with a regular sized set of wheels. I had a Salsa Mukluk carbon with 29×2.4 tyres, was rapid, and very direct, if not especially forgiving but bigger tyres would have solved that.

https://www.vitalmtb.com/community/Tom-Howard,49177/setup,39077

I guess it’s too much to ask for a colour matched front fork unless it’s black 😢

Get it sprayed?

Apologies as slightly OT. TJ – I’m pretty sure your Shand has Paragon Polydrop dropouts and the bits fused to your chainstays / seatstays are stainless steel (they only make them in SS and Ti).

I’ve no great problem with steel rusting internally. I recently reused a 9 year old rear triangle for my commuter. It looked horrific when I chopped the downtube but cleaned up fine to stick on a new front end (no ed coating, just drain holes and Boeshield).

But the idea that untreated fancy bike steels don’t rust is just dreamland – the composition of 853, Ox Plat etc isn’t close to being stainless.

Search for a used Indy Fab Ti deluxe; rigid andSS.
Rarer than hen’s teeth.
Alternatively, order a new one – bespoke to your dimensions/preferences.
I have a steel deluxe – bought third hand; kept frame and fork; disposed of everything else and rebuilt with new components; stripped back to bare metal; repainted; pro gold for tube interiors; touch up any paint chips or use invisiframe/similar.
Steel can take loads of abuse, is infinitely (?) repairable but benefits from a little more TLC than other frame materials.

What rigid form would be suitable for a 140mm forked big al?

Bird blank forks

@damascus, not sure this has come up yet: do want the option of running single speed without a tensioner?

Slight stealth advert!
I have a Travers Russ titanium frameset for sale soon.
Changing bike to FS.
It’s a great bike packing rig and will fit 29 x 2.4 tyres and 27.5 X 3.25 plus tyres.
It is a custom built frameset as it is an XL frame when they only made a large.
It suited me at 6’2″ and 34″ inside leg.
Cost me £1600 at the time but looking for £850 O.N.O.
Email: singlespeedtothemax1@hotmail.co.uk
for more info and pictures.
Thanks Max.

not sure this has come up yet: do want the option of running single speed without a tensioner?

Years of playing basket ball means my knees can’t take single speeding, especially round West Yorkshire hills.

Years of playing basket ball means my knees can’t take single speeding, especially round West Yorkshire hills.

That makes things a lot easier. The easiest thing to do will def be to just look any short-travel hardtail that you like and switch out the forks. I don’t know of any rigid-specific frames that aren’t steel, although some Ti ones will exist I’m sure.

@tomhoward

A fat bike with a regular sized set of wheels. I had a Salsa Mukluk carbon with 29×2.4 tyres, was rapid, and very direct, if not especially forgiving but bigger tyres would have solved that.

When I was googling rigid mtbs I found a post from you a few years ago when you mentioned this, that’s kind of what set me off down this rabbit hole.

Are there any fat bikes that take 110×15 front hubs and 148×12 rear hubs? Or are they all fat hubs for fat bikes? I note yours was “Hubs: Hope Fatsno”

What did your bike weigh with 29×2.4 tyres?

Andrew Major of NSMB and the Meat engines is a fan of rigid bikes and has had a few pretty awesome custom ones made.

They’re pretty out there geometry-wise but he seems to think he’s found the (his) dream numbers.

What about getting a suspension forked bike with modern geo and then just get fork that is made to replicate the A2C of a suspension fork? That would give you a much wide range of options in all types of frame material.

You’d also be able to pick your choice of hub width and allow more modern geometry.

If any of your options seem to have too steep head angles you can always fit an angleset to slacken them out.

Sounds like a lot of effort for something I don’t see any benefits from.

People service suspension at time or financial cost, same thing to me? : )

It’s not really necessary, likewise not a bad idea if you like pottering about in the garage and looking after stuff.

Are there any fat bikes that take 110×15 front hubs and 148×12 rear hubs?

Not proper ones. Mine were 15×150 and 12x197mm, which is pretty much standard nowadays I think.

Was around 24lbs, with no real consideration for weight saving, 28lbs with 26×4.8 wheels/tyres. For reference, my current steel 29×2.6 hardtail is 32lbs

I bought a Mark 1 rigid Frontier. The alloy fork is very rigid though. I then bought a Broken road TI and put the 100mm front fork in the Frontier and use thar as my wrecking ball. Cost next to nothing and does what it does.
I then bought a Travers XC Prong and put that in the Brokenroad. It’s my go to bike, take it everywhere and ride everything on it.
If cost is prohibitive then I have run the Prong in the Frontier which makes it 100% better but doesn’t ride as plush as the Brokenroad. Fork is brilliant in my opinion and will easily take a 2.6.
Someone mentioned the bad look of the Frontier. The MK 2 which has bolt through axles looks horrible. Backend is a dog in my opinion.

Modern bike with the bird rigid forks would give the greatest range of options. Sell the forks whatever you buy comes with and put the money into correct A2C forks like the bird, prongs, etc.

When genesis did the Tarn as a rigid option it came with well regarded carbon forks, may be some kicking around second hand?

These are cheap and apparently replicate 120mm suspension forks https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/FOSEC27V2/selcof-carbon-275-or-29er-fork#FOSEC27V2-MBK

When genesis did the Tarn as a rigid option it came with well regarded carbon forks, may be some kicking around second hand?

This is what I’ve currently got on my one on scandal. The forks are great!

When I started this thread I was expecting stw to bombard me with links to amazing bikes with colour coded matching rigid forks but that hasn’t happened.

So I’m left with buying a mtb and adding carbon forks which is what I’ve already got. The genesis tarn forks are just missing the 3 bolts for strapping bags to them, other than that, they are perfect.

I have a Mk2 Frontier, currently set up with Sonder carbon forks. I think it rides great, but use it mainly as ‘gravel bike’ and for bikepacking. I had a Broken Road for a while and didn’t think it was worth the ££ over the Frontier.

Best riding rigid bike I’ve ever had was a Mk1 Stooge.

What is wrong with the Scandal and what are you looking to achieve with a new bike?

Not all steel is the same. My 853 frame is 2500g so gives up 500g or less compared to Alu or Ti frames. I got it built with the geo and features I wanted for a fraction of Ti and there are very few nice alu frames around.

Spend a bit more on a high end carbon fork and you will have eaten in to that weight difference by a few 100g compared to a cheapy carbon fork (my Whisky fork is 615g cut).

So I’m left with buying a mtb and adding carbon forks which is what I’ve already got.

What is the problem with that?

I think people are struggling on this tread because it isn’t really clear what you want.

“Lightest” option is find a slackish carbon bike and buy a Travers Prong/ ENVE/ etc fork (browse the bikepacking site for a full list of forks with mounting threads).

Something like a BMC Twostroke plus nice rigid fork would be closeish maybe? Personally when looking at light, distance covering bikes I would be looking more “XC” than “Trail”- what is the point of a nice light bike if you have to have a super tall rigid fork and have the bars sky high to preserve geo?

Anyway, I went custom steel to have everything I want, perfect geo and a bling colour for the “cost” of around 500g compared to alu/ Ti I was looking at instead 🙂

Sorry I have no more bike suggestions but:

Maybe not on a 20 mile Sunday ride but on a bike packing trip where your legs and body are tired, having a 1kg tent vs a 3kg tent will make a big difference to me when cycling/pushing up a big hill.

I agree with this, but for the same reasons (and reasons of rolling resistance) there’s no way I would be fitting 2.6 inch tyres to such a bike!

I’d view the Frontier as a downgrade, at best a match for what the OP already has. The Trek has interested me in the past, but is a different bike altogether.

Like the OP, having ridden a fair number of steel frames, I prefer a light stuff aluminium frame and currently have a rigid Scandal on the go myself. In his position I’d just replace stuff when it breaks, maybe get a spendy fork if he really needs to chuck some cash about.

2.3 to 2.6 is about +200g per tyre for a similar casing? I wouldn’t worry about it tbh if the volume suits where/how you ride. Bigger volume tyres can roll more efficiently off-road anyway, I’m more convinced of that from loaded riding.

Want

Nordest do these in titanium too

Whatever the first thing wzzz posted. I want one too. Deets man deets

^ looks like one of Peter Verdone’s custom projects.

It is.

Pvd super marine spitfire.

Christ his blog is terrible.

Krampus fork in the classifieds that would be a cheap way to bikepack in your current bike.

Suspension corrected and All the mounts you could want

@damascus, I’d be wary of going down the fatbike route if your knees are an issue. Some knees don’t get on with the 100mm wide bottom bracket and wide q-factor. Might not be an issue for yours, but it’s another item for the “Hmmm…” column

I have 27.5 2.8 wheels on my Whippet if that helps.

I have 27.5 3/2.8 and 29 2.6/2.4 set ups for my whippet both on fairly cheap and relatively heavy wheels. I’m wondering whether 29/2.8 front and 27.5/2.8 rear might not be the best combination if I’m going to spend some money on a set of wheels. Great bike though and I certainly don’t need more than it for what I ride. I happily did the sdw in a day last year with no issues on the 29 wheels but the 27.5’s are more fun.

as a lover of all things rigid, big rubbered and singlespeed I have this at the moment, as one of my Ti fleet. also have loads of steel rigids

It has triple cage mounts, will take a 29×3.00 front max 2.6 in the rear loads of space for frame bags and storage doodads. it will be moshing around the Dirty Reiver in a couple of weeks so more than capable and comfy for 200km in a sitting

@zippykona do you have any more photos of your Whippet? There’s an orange frame I’ve got my eye on to do the same thing with…what frame size do you have?

If you must have Alu, other frames worth considering are Santa Cruz Chameleon and Salsa Timberjack Al. Difficult to get hold of either, but both adaptable and bikepacking friendly, but don’t think they’d really give you much over the Scandal, other than a few mounts and some branding!

Here you go ifab

Thanks! That looks much cooler in real life than in online/studio photos and there’s a cheap frame on eBay…