Show me your longish forked 29er Hardtails…

Pondering replacing my nicked bikes with a 120-140mm forked 29er Hardtail…

Burly enough for BPW, light enough for big days out.

What have you got?

How have you gotten on with it?

Pictures please!

Not got a picture to hand but my 2 Souls Quarterhorse has been far more capable than the Nicolai Helius it replaced, done Lakes, Wales, Quantocks and this summer taking it to Morzine because its just that good to ride.
Search on here about them, they’re really jolly good
SSStu, and Scienceofficer both have one too

needs wheels Brant… and forks…. gears would be nice… .brakes would be lovely.

Mwhahahahhhahhahhahh ha.

Ha.

And the first iteration of candodavids too.

One of these you mean?

Bah, i’ll be buggered if I can work out images through Googledrive. Anyway, it’s another 2Souls Quarterhorse with MRP Stage forks and by the time i’d faffed the others had posted theirs.

Absolutely brilliant and now with dropper. Had a Canfield Yelli before and this is just better. Brilliantly finished frame, rides superbly, can’t fault it really. If you happen to be XL then there is one in the classifieds at the moment. Typical riding is surrey hills trails but been to bike park wales a couple of times and it was great there too albeit some of the blacks get a bit bone shakey but that would happen on any hardtail.

This does the job for me. Will take up to 140 forks, but feels pretty good for everything I’m brave enough to hit at 120.

Should’nt have sold it 🙁

2013 Trek Stache here. Shorter stem, wider bars, Reverb Stealth, SID RCT3s now.

I still like it. It’s my only MTB so does everything from a pootle around local bridleways for an hour, to a day at BPW or Afan. No plans to change it, just need to get round to fitting the wider rims and going tubeless.

Titus Fireline Evo 29
120mm X fusion slides. Rode last year’s EWS on it, absolute beast of a descender and quick up too

ROS 9 with MRP Stage forks at 140mm.

Fairly crap picture but you get the gist of it.

Really interesting thread and some nice bikes.

Sorry for a slight thread hijack but @ frood – do your slides ‘stick’ I’d they’ve been left overnight, etc. I have them on my bike and it’s so annoying. Someone said try fork juice and I have but to no avail.

Thanks for any feedback.

Go on then, I’ll bite.. What the frame Brant (& geo)?

@Normal Man. No such troubles with mine, the EWS did blow the damper, so took them apart and serviced them, work fine. Lot more ramp up than the Reba RL I had before, I’d rate it a lot higher. It’s no pike, but for a hardcore hardtail it doesn’t hold me back.

Edit… I leave my bikes hanging up, so the seals will be sitting in oil when it’s not being ridden

I’ve got some slides on my other bike, there is an initial sticking feeling of the bike hadn’t been used for a while but it’s def not overnight.

Thanks guys. Mine take a good few full weight pushes on the bars to free them up.

Like I said, I’d been told fork.juice helps but using it both pre and post ride hasn’t changed anything.

Old, and poor photo, but you get the idea…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davechopoptions/19312612898/in/album-72157631889870672/

z1ppy – Member
Go on then, I’ll bite.. What the frame Brant (& geo)?

Hi – sorry for delay.

It’s a Pact Battlecat.

Had a Canfield Yelli before…

My purple Yelli (formally Gotama’s) with a 140mm Rev and some 35mm rims

Burly enough for BPW, light enough for big days out.

Exactly. 28.5lb with the P35s/Chunky Monkey 2.4 tyres, 26.5lb if I switch to Crests with Ardent/Ikon combo.

Trek Stache 8 + 120mm Pikes + Dropper Post 27.5lbs with pedals. Love it!

I’m hopefully building something up in this vein but struggling to find 120+mm forks at a sensible price

Is disappoint at singlespeedstu for lack of horse bombing.

🙁

Scienceofficer – are they Lightbike carbon wheels on yours? How are you finding them? Any substance in the ‘carbon wheels are too stiff for a hardtail and they’ll break your bones’ line or does it ride well/no differently.

Genesis High Latitude with 120mm forks. Rides really well and is a lot of fun. Very good as my second bike and compliments the full sus very well. Pretty basic forks up front but I reckon with a 120/130mm Pike up front and some burly rubber fitted then it would be a riot.

Not mine, but borrowed for a few days:

P3140019 by ir_bandito[/url], on Flickr

Prototype Kingdom Bikes Brigante.
Was absolutely awesome riding the 4-pass route in the Lakes. Light and easy for hike-a-bike up and an absolute hoot to steam-roller down. (was crap at pedalling upo the road to Honistor IIRC)

IMG_0284 by ir_bandito[/url], on Flickr

Yes, they’re light bike 35mm rims, built using conventional J-bend spokes and hubs (either Hope pro2 or DT Swiss 350s). My experience of them has been nothing but positive really. I have two sets, one that is about 15 months old on my sultan and the 2nd Set has been on the ‘Orse since about Easter this year. They do get marked on rocks quite easily, but no more than Stans aluminium rims IMO.
My reasons for purchasing were based on the desire to get a wider rim for better tyre profile and volume without paying the price of either extra weight or increased flexibility of wider alu rims. The internal width of the LB’s is 7mm more than my old alu rims for the same weight. They’re also obviously very much stiffer. I also reckoned that hookless beads would tubeless really well with the newer breed of tubeless ready tyres now bead tolerances are more carefully controlled and I think I was right on that count.
So, stiffness. Yes – they are stiffer. It’s the first thing I noticed of the Sultan, which I use as my big days in the hills bike. It translates as additional pickup under acceleration and a few rides of over-steering until you adapt. These effects seem to be magnified on the ‘orse a bit, and with it comes a little bit of small bump chatter since there’s no rear suspension. I supposed its possible that someone with a sub-optimally configured fork could feel the difference if the damping setup was a bit out. It feels like the tyres have too much pressure in them. I realised fairly quickly that the additional wheel stiffness is providing more trail feedback. If you’re the type of rider that spends a long time sat pedalling, it’s possible that you may not like the additional feedback or jarring. I personally don’t think it’s a massive deal, but it does exist. One of the reasons I don’t think it’s a massive deal is that the extra volume and width has allowed me to take approx. 4 PSI from my standard tyre pressures, which both provides increased grip, removes the chattery feel and doesn’t seem to affect the rolling speed. I’m 14.5st and run 20 PSI these days, which is enough for all but the biggest, fastest hits, like say, the Macmillan way on Exmoor in last year’s Mondraker Gravity Enduro, where I blew 2 snakebites (4 holes) through a Hans Dampf in one single hit (not a mark on the rim anywhere).
For me, the advantages far outweigh the slight adaptation required as a result of the additional stiffness. Its certainly not ‘break your bones territory’. How much you notice it will depend on how rough your usual riding is, and how perceptive you are as an individual IMO.

Stanton sherpa with 30T chainring/42t expander, 120mm Pikes, Mavic Crossride wheels, ’15 Nobby Nic/Slant six tyres and no dropper it’s around 28.5Lb. No light weight but a great bike for the ups and downs of the lakes.

Love that Sherpa superfastjellyfish. So tempted to swap my 29er FS for one but as a one bike for all man, a bit worried I’ll regret it on long bumpy rides.

Yes, they’re light bike 35mm rims

Thanks, appreciate the detailed feedback. Interesting you can get away with such low tyre pressures too.

Fairly new toy – Parkwood sporting 140mm Revs
Awesome fun on the downs, quick point 2 point could be better on the ups!

Interesting you can get away with such low tyre pressures too.

I was surprised myself, but I’ve been a fan of big, low pressure tyres on wide rims for a quite a while and I’ve got a fair amount of tubeless experimentation under my belt these days!

Love that Sherpa superfastjellyfish. So tempted to swap my 29er FS for one but as a one bike for all man, a bit worried I’ll regret it on long bumpy rides.

Replaced my 26″ FS with it in November and never looked back @andyflaw. Longest ride is 23.4miles Stavley -> Gatesgarth/Nan beid and back, plenty of bumpy and no broken back. 29ers roll man……

Lots of lovely bikes!

Cheers!

I have on my short list:
Chromag Rootdown
Cotic Solaris (new version)
Stanton Sherpa

I should be able to get a nicely spec’d (Pikes or Revs, SLX/XT, Hope bits, reverb/lev, etc) bike for 2k!

That stanton sherpa gets more appealing everyday….fancying a change from the canyon, also the trans am 29 looks good… to many decisions..

Ragley Bigwig? Not sure you can get them new anymore but a second hand frame would be peanuts.
http://ragleybikes.com/products/bigwig-frame/

Does give away 1lb/500g to the sherpa and solaris though but not found the weight a problem.

Trans-Am in L, would be ace! Shame they have sold out of them for this year.

No more until November.

Unless….someone knows of one lurking in a LBS somewhere?

Trans-AM in L you say? 🙂

Now running stealth Reverb and flat bars. Crying out for a stouter pair of forks than the Revs on there

Titus Fireline Evo 29er

I am liking this thread!