Slack 26 hard tail on a budget – will this work?

Currently ride an inbred 26 and am looking to upgrade to something with a more modern geometry.
Only problem is that I’m working on a pretty tight budget so want to do just replace the frame and reuse my existing 26 parts.
Had a quick look at some geometry charts and it looks like an on one 45650b with a 2 degree slackset and my current 120mm rebas should get me bang up to date. With this set up i end up with a 65.3 degree static HA (66.8 sagged), 73 degree STA, and a 42mm bb drop.
So I guess the question is, will these numbers work well for trail riding, or does it make the bottom bracket too low and would I be better looking at something else?

I thought about doing exactly that, but stuck with my fs which has ended up with a roughly 64.5 head angle. Love it with 35mm stem and 780 bars.

I do like low bb’s though so that’s an attraction to me on the 45650 with 26 wheels. Let’s face it though, but much difference in radius between 26 and 650b so difference in bb height will be minimal and probably more dependent on tyres.

35% of superstars already great value slacksets today.

I am sure a slightly lower, longer, slacker bike will ride differently.
However, I bet that some new tyres will have as big an effect on the riding.
I ride ‘old’ steel Sanderson, that is long, but not low or slack. I can easily keep up with many on Enduro Gnar sleds, 650+ and 29ers, while having as much fun…..

Your bb will be about 9 mm lower on 26 with 120 forks than would be on 27.5 with 100s, which I’m guessing is the lowest It was designed for. Depends on the starting bb height though, I reckon if the adjusted static bb height is not lower than about 290 you can get away with it..

what about an EVO II frame? love the way mine rides and I can keep up with all my mates on their full sussers.

I guess you can’t make the stearer any slacker though as they’re a 1 1/8th stearer tube.

Run mine with 140mm forks though but still rides real nice and all your bits will go straight onto it from the inbred.

I’ve been thinking something along similar lines. The 45650 is plenty slack enough, but I’m not sure it would be long enough to be considered ‘modern’ geometry and you can’t change that bit.

I was looking at the NS Bikes Eccentric (on CRC) for a similar purpose. They’re specced to accept 26″ wheels, cheap too

Cheers guys – seems like it should work so?
There other option would be to just get a 456 evo2 and be done with it, but im not sure if there’s really that big a difference in ride between an 456 evo2 with 120mm forks and an inbred with 120mm forks?
Anyone ridden both and have an opinion on it?

I’d give you a geekily detailed answer if On-One could be bothered to provide accurate geometry charts – but they’re somewhat vague to say the least…

However, on a lot of 27.5 hardtails you can run 26 wheels without the BB height dropping too low – don’t forget to figure in how much shorter a 26 fork is for a given travel, especially less burly ones, which will steepen the angles and drop the BB further.

Dartmoor Hornet. You’re welcome 🙂

Just run the biggest tyres you can fit.

Works do a conventional 1 1/8 slackeriser headset but its only 1 degree.

You’re welcome to make me an offer on my Ragley Piglet-2 thats currently sat under my bed doing nothing, good conditon in that there are no cracks or dents, some usual riding scrapes….already fitted with a Shimano BB recently and has a Hope headset installed too…the 44mm headtube can take pretty much all the anglesets on the market currently, lovely bike (medium 16/17 inches i believe).

Then you dont have to worry about a too low BB as you’re not putting 26 inch wheels in a 650b bike frame.

I have a 16″ c456 with 2 degree slackset and Fox 36’s at 140mm if you want to discuss price my email is mugboo@gmail.com

Is there a way to fit a tapered steerer in an Evo 2 frame? Or never gonna happen. Just asking as looking to swap all my 26 inch setup to a newer frame but with a new fork.