The death of steep head angles

 It was still a bit of a mission keeping the front wheel on the ground on very steep climbs with lots of leaning forward over the bars to keep the wheel down. Now, 20 years later with slack HA and stort stems it doesn’t seem nearly so tricky when logic says it should be harder not easier.

You’re probably sitting much further in front of the rear axle. A 29″ wheel needs longer chainstays, plus a steeper seat angle will move you forwards quite a lot. Problem is that a longer bike is harder to wrestle around tight technical trails. Solution: build trail centers with nice open, flowing trails that suit longer bikes.

Probably. Thinking about it – on an old school frame sitting on the nose of the saddle was part of the climbing technique as well doing a press up over the bars.

Compared to a modern geometry bike (my regular bike is a Whyte S150) its absolutely terrifying!
That’s when you realise the benefits of modern geometry. When you go back to an old bike and feel how dangerous it is in comparison.

A colleague bought a mid-90s Marin Eldridge Grade a year or two ago. I raced the same frame for a few years in the 90s, and now ride a Marin gravel bike to work. So, with a few jokes about gravel bikes being the same as a 90s MTB we rode the bikes around the carpark. The old Eldridge Grade was the twitchiest, most nervous bike I’ve ridden in years. I’m amazed that we used to race those things!

…… may feel (and/or be) slower on tight slow speed trails.

Going back to this, there’s not a huge pool of people who ride tight slow speed trails, presumably fairly flat. Down here in Wales tight trails are normally also steep. If slack HA’s and modern geo didn’t work, we wouldn’t be riding it.

@jfab it’s running a 140mm Pike currently.

I like it a lot in slacker mode.

It wasn’t especially steep beforehand, but having the front wheel a bit further away is nice, especially for steep “I’ll plummet down here and then smack into that catch berm” type stuff, where it just gives you more margin before it feels like the front wheel wants to fold and spit you out the front.

Interestingly, the things I noticed most immediately after the headset swap were not really the head angle so much as the seat angle being a bit steeper and the front end being a bit lower.

The seat angle I thought was better a bit steeper — I’ve always liked how it climbs, I think the slightly long chainstays help it be quite tenacious at motoring up stuff, but the seat angle being a bit steeper just makes it a bit better IMO.

The front end being lower I got on with less well: more weight on my hands didn’t feel great, and I struggled with lifting the front wheel. I ended up replacing my 38mm rise bars with 55mm rise and that works a lot better for me. Front wheel lifts are no bother, and I don’t feel like I’m putting a lot of weight through my hands any more.

@tomparkin that’s really good feedback, thank you! The seat angle I think can only be a good thing, as it’s not super-steep in stock form so you won’t be in danger of tipping it over into “too steep” territory.

I think I have ~10-15mm spacers above the stem currently, so plenty of scope to play with that or higher bars if I need to later.

Cheers!

Going back to this, there’s not a huge pool of people who ride tight slow speed trails, presumably fairly flat. Down here in Wales tight trails are normally also steep. If slack HA’s and modern geo didn’t work, we wouldn’t be riding it.

depends I guess on your definition of slow and flat

is flat something that you cannot just roll down, or something that it gets better/faster if you pedal a bit?

if its the latter, that probably makes up 75% of the singletrack at most trail centres and similar unofficial woodland trails around the country.

Yea, I’ve slowly evolved from a “slam the stem because I can” sort of rider (I’ve got nice long hamstrings/glutes and a flexy spine) to riding 50mm rise bars even on a 150mm travel 29er.

The difference is that one puts all the weight on the front wheel for grip, the other lets you choose whether to put all the weight on the front for grip.

The closest thing to an XC bike in my shed (the Scandal) has a 70mm stem and some rise/spacers as a compromise. The stem pulls weight forward compared to the 50mm I started with, and the bars/spacers allow for a bit more elbow articulation! I’d like to compare it to an XL, but unless it had a much steeper SA or longer stays I think the lack of weight on the front might be an issue.

Modern bikes may be easier to ride, but they are also mostly boring until you’re going at warp factor 9. Once one gets to a certain level of decrepitude, or have just had that one accident too many… it can be nicer to have a sharper handling bike that still feels balanced when ones more focused on being chilled, rather than trying to throw shapes all the time.

@ratherbeintobago Yes – initially exclusive to Trek/Fisher, then became industry standard offset, before longer front centres (appreciate GF were relatively long back then but are short now) took hold which benefited from slacker HAs and shorter offsets to slow down steering.

The point stands that they were forward thinking almost 20 yrs ago, then got stuck in a rut and/or scared to alienate folk like the OP.

I nearly bought an HKEK as my first MTB but the custom offset fork put me off.

“put your weight back” is actually quite good advice on my Sub5 with 71 deg head angle

Only been over the bars twice in 20+ years . Or was it 3. All part of the fun

Geometry certainly seems to have settled in to its happy place imo. In the past bikes had quirks and might be fine most of the time before trying to kill you or be ace at most things but terrible at one or two. These days I have a 29er 150mm full suss, 29er xc hard tail and 650b 150mm hard tail. All ace at different things but all could just about cope with any type of riding I do.

“Slowly, painfully, inching away from the 1980’s road bike geometry that all MTB’s started with.”

They didn’t start like that! The earlier ones were based on klunkers – slacker angles, longer fork offset, longer chainstays, taller wider bars and shorter taller stems.

My first MTB was a 1988 Peugeot (24” wheels because I was young) and I remember finding my next MTB in the early ‘90s so much harder to ride downhill – and knowing what I know now and looking back at old photos and finding old catalogues, I can see it was because the fancy new bike had flat narrow bars, a long stem and a steep head angle. Roadies and XC races around fields ruined MTBs!

My first MTB was a 1988 Peugeot (24” wheels because I was young) and I remember finding my next MTB in the early ‘90s so much harder to ride downhill – and knowing what I know now and looking back at old photos and finding old catalogues, I can see it was because the fancy new bike had flat narrow bars, a long stem and a steep head angle. Roadies and XC races around fields ruined MTBs!

Ditto – mine was a similar era Scott – big old gate of a bike – 26″ though. But then I got my ’97 Lava Dome (with it’s fabled geometry) and proceeded to fall off it at every given opportunity. It wasn’t until I changed the bars and stem that I actually liked the bike

Probably. Thinking about it – on an old school frame sitting on the nose of the saddle was part of the climbing technique as well doing a press up over the bars.

I went through a period of ‘bouldering’ in the Pentlands when I set out to climb the ‘unclimbable’ climbs.

Lowest gearing available at the time was 22×34, used a tacky rear freeride tyre, and I think my saddle was actually a TT saddle with a big padded nose, specifically so I could scootch forward and climb on the nose 😎

XC races around fields ruined MTBs

Surely this is a myth?  I started racing in 1992 and I never raced around a field.  There were a few 24hr races in the 2000s that had a bit of field edge, but that was just a few short sections to link up ten odd miles of singletrack.

I think people may be confusing XC with CX as some CX races still appear to be largely riding around a field.

“Put your weight back” is a bit of myth now, originating from the 90s based on the bikes at the time. As others have pointed out steep HA and an more upright position meant that you had to get your ar3s right over the back to stop going over the front.  For years now, as the HA angle has slackened and my front end has got higher I’ve been a devotee of pushing weight onto the front, exaggeratedly so – 99% of the time it works brilliantly (until it doesn’t and the laws of physics take over 😉 ) It takes some commitment, but I convinced myself that it was like snowboarding,.. you need to push your weight onto the front in the steeps to get the grip to turn and slow.  As soon as you lean back like a noob, you’re on your behind. A good test bed is a series of turns/berms at a trail centre (remember those), the sort that has a fine pea layer of grit/top dressing all over. Session it gradually building up weight on the front … you’ soon find you can build up to a much higher speed than previously possible. then do a final run with your weight rearward… and watch as you wash out and die in flames.

So, unless you need to go fast on a flat fire road, or farmer’s track (and get a bike appropriate for that, e.g. gravel or CX) I just don’t see the attraction of steep HAs.

No, I agree with the Chief, I defo raced  XC around fields, with the teeniest tiniest bit of “tech” thrown in (grassy downhill with tight turns made with the tape. Friday Night Race Night (I think that was the series) even had two courses in the Midlands (Northants area) that was grass fields, I last raced there in about 2018.

When I was over in the states about 6 years ago I went to watch a XC race, and this was purely on grass, fire road and tarmac. Very strange.

This was a series of 3 races, and to be fair one of the races was genuinely tech in modern XC terms. The others seemed a bit gravelly. I’ve raced more technically difficult CX courses.

So, unless you need to go fast on a flat fire road, or farmer’s track (and get a bike appropriate for that, e.g. gravel or CX) I just don’t see the attraction of steep HAs.

My Salsa with the 70.5 HA is not at all bad on steep slow technical stuff.  I’ve run it rigid and with suspension, but only 100mm which clearly limits the damage; but I think the crucial factor is that it’s a 29er and on the long side for me as well.

Having rigid forks completely changes the situation as you can lean hard on the bars and put far more weight on than you can with suspension forks.  And you won’t struggle on fast rocky sections because you can’t go fast on rocky sections 🙂

I think there is probably a very niche application where this bike is faster than a trail bike, and that niche is probably just Swinly Forest.  I used to fly round there on the Salsa, I doubt I could go anywhere near as quick on the Reactor.