I think it’s an interesting reflection of how bikes and riding have changed. When I started mountain biking proper back in 1989/90, it was all about how fast you could climb and racing XC. The bikes weren’t capable of doing much else but the novelty of having a bike that could go up steep off-road hills was, quite frankly, amazing. Since then bikes have got heavier and much more capable on technical descents and riding habits have changed. It’s now much more about enjoying challenging descents than covering ground and climbing big mountains. I have a 21lb carbon 29er hardtail that I ride mostly in Hampshire and the riding here is only fun at warp speed. On the hardtail I regularly hit 35+ mph and at those sorts of speeds you can get air on the smallest of trail features, which is all we have. As such I need the 39×11 top gear and I rarely use less than 39×26. There are only a couple of hills where I use 26×28 when I’m being lazy. A 1x setup with anything less than a 38t chainring would severely limit my enjoyment.

On the other hand, I use my 30lb full-susser in the usual technical honeypots in the Lakes, Wales, Dales and Peaks and I’ve rarely wanted for more than the 32×10-42 that the 1x setup offers on that bike. It’s a much more plodding climber, despite being remarkably efficient as full suspension bikes go, and the descents I tend to ride on it are generally technical enough that pedalling is all but impossible.

The type of riding that a lot of people do now means that you don’t need to be as fit as many of us were back in the XC racing days and that, combined with the increase in bike weight, slack geometry and bouncy suspension, means that a smaller chainring makes more sense for more people. I just wish there was more choice for us old XC die-hards!

I love the shape and feel of the Truvativ Noir T30 700mm, 130g on my carbon hardtail.

I had an earlier Camelbak with hip bladder and found that the water ended up on one side or the other and pulled the pack sideways which made it really uncomfortable. Hopefully they’ve changed the design since.

Here’s a bizarre thing, my Cannondale F29 carbon hardtail which weighs 21lb came with Arch EX rims and my Yeti SB75 alloy full-susser came with Crest rims!

The Crests last about half a ride before they start creaking and tinging from loose spokes and they wobble all over the place. The Arches built up with C-Xray spokes aren’t great even on XC trails and I find myself having to tension the spokes regularly. Heavier spokes would probably help but I’d rather have a set of Mavics.

I use a MM front and Shorty rear on muddy Hampshire trails and it’s one of the few combinations that can elicit traction in the depths of winter. But in the Peaks and Lakes, I found that I was spinning out on most of the rocky climbs and the Shorty was all over the place over rocks on the descents. It also wore out incredibly quickly to the point where the chunky square lugs were soon rounded!

So for the Peaks and Lakes I switched to a 2.3 HR2 on the back. It’s a big improvement although still not perfect. I actually got more climbing traction on rocks with an Ardent on the back but the HR2 offers more braking traction. The HR2 is quite draggy and it sounds like I ought to give the DHR2 a look.

Anquet

Salsa are by far the best I’ve used. Hope are truly horrible, very crude in comparison.

I use 29×2.25 RR Evo Snakeskins all year round on my XC hardtail. They do surprisingly well in the mud, though obviously not in deep gloop. You have to ride them as there are no big lugs on the edges of the tread so expect to use a lot of body English, but if you do, they’re fast and fun. Obviously they’re designed for XC so they won’t take massive rocky abuse but they seem to last forever on XC trails. I’m 70-71kg and run tubeless at 21psi front, 22 rear. I should think you’ll get pinged all over the place on roots at 35psi even though you’re heavier than me. Even at 25psi I find they stop absorbing roots.

Just carried out the oil change service. Ordered the kit from Plush Suspension who delivered promptly and there’s enough oil left for the next service plus I didn’t replace the wipers, which came in the kit, as they seem fine too. Absolutely no signs of damage but the old oil did look quite tired and emulsified.

The forks are noticeably plusher now. So they seem to survive two years and about 150 hours of riding without servicing reasonably well although an annual service looks like a much more sensible way of ensuring the oil remains in decent condition and therefore both protects the component parts and keeps things smooth.

Thanks for all the responses. Sounds like once a year ought to do it. I’ve ordered a service kit and will get it sorted next weekend. It’s only a year overdue this time

Thanks for the initial responses. It’s not a bridleway or footpath at the moment. The narrow strip of land is between two forestry commission plantations where there’s public access and it’s long been a way for locals to access the two woods.

I’ve been using the Carbon Cycles DiscoBrakes semi-metallic pads in my X0 Trail brakes for a while. They offer less immediate bite than the SRAM OEM pads but loads of modulation. It requires a firmer pull to really slam the anchors on but when you do, the bike stops. Haven’t tried any of their other compounds.

I put a couple of caps full of Karcher car cleaner shampoo into an old Muc-off spray bottle, fill it with water and it works just as well as Muc-off. The Karcher shampoo’s designed to work with cold water so it’s a lot less diluted than other car shampoos. £6.50 a bottle and lasts forever. You can get it in all the usual places. I use Fenwicks degreaser, or whatever’s on offer, in a Park chain cleaning tool to do the chain and sprockets.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/K%C3%A4rcher-Car-Shampoo-Plug-Clean/dp/B00B17M5AY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482313992&sr=8-1&keywords=karcher+car+cleaning+fluid

I was in Alicante on business this week and happened to mention to one of the guys that we’d flown over what looked like some great mountain bike trails and he put me onto this website:

http://en.comunitatvalenciana.com/what-to-do/centres-btt

In essence there are loads of signposted trails accessible from hub villages called BTTs. Each has 100km+ of varied trails. It looks great and I’ll definitely try one out next time I’m over there.

It’s amusing that people are questioning the need for a 38t chainring when we all had 42t-44t big rings with something like 11-28 on the back up until relatively recently! And people complained about maxing out 44×11 at a lot of the races I attended and were fitting enormous rings.

And why is 27mph considered too fast for off road? These are strange comments, presumably made by people riding 30+lb full sus bikes. 90% of my riding is on and around the South Downs, which is fast, not overly technical with some decent climbs. 27mph is not especially fast on some of these trails. I rarely switch out of the 39t ring on the Downs despite having a close-ratio 11-27 cassette installed – climbing is my thing.

It’s always dangerous to assume that everyone rides trails and bikes like you. We’re all different and riding in different places. I generate 360W at threshold, am 6′ 2″ tall so have long levers and weigh 70kg, which helps me ride the local trails fairly aggressively. As I mentioned before, when I’m on my full-sus, riding in Wales, the Dales and the Lakes, I’m very happy with the 32×10-42 range on that bike, but the F29 is 4 minutes faster up a local 1.7 mile climb, which gives you some idea of how much slower a 30lb full-sus trail bike is compared with a carbon hard tail XC race bike!

Thanks guys, and yes I do need it that big. My Cannondale F29 is very fast and I can climb all of the hills in southern England plenty fast with a 1:1 ratio bottom gear. And I run out of ratios with 39×11 on the local trails. On the other hand, I’m very happy with 32×10-42 on my full-sus, which gets ridden much more slowly but comes into its own in Wales and the north. It’s horses for courses.

Bluebell shoots here in Hampshire too. And the brambles and wild roses are still taking over the trails, which is frustrating. Mud I expect in winter, but I also expect the brambles to have died back!

Surprisingly few bike-related businesses mentioned so far. I have to call out Merlin Cycles. They are an online company but with real, knowledgeable people that you can speak to and if, like me, you cocked up your order, you can drop them an email and they’ll fix it – you’re not lost in some automated computer system. They were also super helpful when I bought a bike from them and wanted some components swapped out. All done at no cost other than the difference in price of the components.

Fail to recognise that the latest long, low, slack, wide-barred full suspension bikes have limitations when ridden on fast woodland singletrack.

I was pedalling fast through the twisty woodland track, cranked the bike over for a left hander and, out of the corner of my eye, noticed a few inches of hazel stump sticking out of the ground on the inside of the corner. Next second the pedal, sitting low to the ground on the trendy slack frame hit the stump.

I’ve never stopped so fast in my life. I careered over the bars and landed on my shoulder, my face ploughing a furrow through the soft loam that many a gardener would have been proud to have made using the finest selection of Spear and Jackson tools. All went quiet for a fraction of a second and then the bike caught up with me and the on-trend wide bars slammed into my rib cage.

After lying still for a while, I dragged myself upright, wiped the mud from my face and rode the couple of miles home wondering why I was struggling to clip in and why I didn’t seem to be able to steer the bike with my left arm. As the adrenaline subsided, the pain ramped up. Upshot: cracked rib and partially dislocated shoulder and the first time I’ve ever snapped an XTR SPD pedal.

I now coast through tight turns in the woods when riding this bike.

Anquet Maps uses proper OS maps and you can buy all the different scales to meet your needs.

This is a crappy phone pic but the image is what I think of when people talk of perfect singletrack. This was taken on Sunday in the woods above Lawson Park, near Coniston Water in the Lake District.

Double wrap your bar tape – I used Prologo DoubleTouch. It works to a degree but it was my finger joints and not my palms that really hurt and the tape and padded gloves don’t do much to help that. A carbon bar helps quite a lot.

I rode Open Paves and would recommend nothing else. Their 320tpi construction means that they have much less rolling resistance and are less affected by irregular surfaces than most other clinchers. I rode 24mm front and 27mm rear as I couldn’t fit a larger front but I’d recommend 27 front and rear if they fit. Tyre pressure is key though. Spend time trying different pressures on a rough road until you find the lowest you can go to without the risk of pinch flat or the tyre rolling in a corner – exact figures will depend on your weight. Comfortable wheels also make a difference and my Mavic Ksyrium SLRs definitely helped.

Keep your weight back and your hands on the tops. Note that it’s really hard to move your hands to the brakes for corners so judge your speed and freewheel into corners so you don’t have to brake. Ride as hard as you can on the pave sections, it really does help. When we hit Arenberg I was a bit stunned and slowed down which was a mistake. Once I got pressure on the pedals things improved (a bit).

I used Elite Cuissi Gel alloy bottle cages, which a lot of the pros use, and they work really well so long as you bend in the cage before setting off, this holds the bottles tighter, particularly the bottle on the seat tube.

I used a Canyon VCLS 2.0 seatpost which works well on coarse tarmac but I’m not sure it made much difference at Roubaix! The most successful improvement I saw was on my mate’s Trek Domane. The isolated seatpost enabled him to almost float over the worst of the pave, very impressive.

Thanks for all the responses. Sounds like it’s all about finding a set of pads that really fit will and aren’t too thick. Might take some experimentation. Glad you survived your crash Del – sounds nasty! I won’t be pushing so hard that I’m increasing my risk of crashing, it’s more about being able to avoid crashes by being a bit more committed to certain lines. Things tend to go wrong when you having second thoughts at the wrong time!

Thanks Patrick, some really helpful insights for someone who’s never used pads before. I hadn’t considered slipping them down to my ankles and, like you suggest, I can imagine having them available to use on just the short, technical sections on a longer ride.

Amazing, continuity, that you can get so irate about something that you can take the time to contribute a completely unhelpful response to a topic you have no interest in and to what end? If you don’t like the nomenclature why on earth did you bother reading the post and responding with a valueless response? Who do you feel is clogging up the forum more? Those asking valid questions phrased in this way or those posting pointless responses condemning them? When others reference this post looking for insights, how will you have helped?

Thanks Mcdonagh, really useful response – thanks for actually reading and responding with relevance to my post, I really appreciate it. It sounds like I should only consider pads for shorter, very technical rides where I know I’ll face some challenging terrain. I agree that you only get faster as your skills improve but I’ve been mountain biking for 25 years and, although my skills improve every time I go out, I know there are routes I could ride faster if I had the knee equivalent of an enduro helmet with a peak. Make sense? I often use my head to deflect branches, safe in the knowledge that my helmet and its peak will divert them away from my head. There are descents in the Lakes that I know I would be smoother on if I knew that I could use my knee to balance myself on the way down. I’m not looking to save myself from a major accident but use the pads to maintain forward momentum in tight, rocky situations. I’m not hung up on going a few seconds faster but I know I’d love the buzz of clearing those descents a bit quicker. The mental playback after the ride would stay with me for some time, which is what mountain biking is all about for me.

I’m doing a challenging 23 miler in the Lakes later this week and might try some lightweight pads on that ride.

Molgrips makes a good point. Most people don’t understand just how small adjustments of position can be and still make significant differences to how a bike rides, particularly full-suss bikes. It’s why I don’t put any store in demo rides. It takes weeks of riding to understand how to set a bike up, settle in to how it feels and get used to anything that’s different to what you had previously. It’s quite remarkable how over time your MTB becomes an extension of your nervous system. Your muscles are correcting and adjusting the bike’s behaviour through sub-conscious thought. The problem is that when you try another bike that all goes out the window and every sensation is different. Some of it may feel better, some worse, but often, given time, you discover that some of what felt worse is actually better and vice-versa. It’s really quite bizarre if you jump back on a bike that used to feel perfect but which has been gathering dust in the shed for some time due to the arrival of a new steed. Whereas the new steed felt odd to begin with, the old bike, which was so perfect in terms of riding position and responsiveness, now feels like a bag of spanners, too low, too high, too stretched or too cramped.

That said, a single pivot bike like the Orange is always going to be compromised somewhere, particularly under braking. In essence the suspension design is no more advanced than that on my ’96 Cannondale Super V and that only needed to cope with 80mm of travel. Riding something like the Fuel EX with a very honed suspension set up highlights the difference pretty quickly and the whole setup is less affected by changes in weight distribution. There’s a lot to be said for the massive R&D budgets of the likes of Trek and Specialized even if you don’t much like their brand image.

What NorthCountryBoy said plus also you could drive down to Hartsop in Patterdale and climb up past Hayswater onto High Street and ride the whole length of High Street and return via Howtown and along the edge of Ullswater. It’s the longest high-altitude ridge ride in England, has fabulous views and the grassy, drop-offy descent from High Street is a lot of fun. The route along Ullswater is lumpy and rocky. It’s about 22 miles with 3500ft of ascent.

Thanks Stevet1, I appreciate the positive sentiment.

Probably the segment where I got lost and had to stop to read the map a couple of times, allthepies! :wink:

It’s been interesting reading the responses to my post. I wonder if there’s a generational thing here. I’ve been ‘mountain biking’ since the mid-70s on a road bike with on-trend cow-horn handlebars to make it a proper scrambler. My first ‘proper’ mountain bike arrived in ’91 and was a rigid steel Ridgeback with an unfeasibly (for the time) large number of gears – 21, I think. The 1″ headset would come loose on every ride, as did the cranks and riding on anything other than smooth paths was purgatory.

I soon began XC racing and the focus of all the magazines, manufacturers and ‘proper mountain bikers’ was to find a way to reduce the weight of the bike and the rider. My first ‘race’ mountain bike arrived in ’94 – a Rocky Mountain Vapour in 7005 aluminium with a RockShox Quadra suspension fork. This was my first mountain bike that could actually be used off road at speed and not fall apart. Lots of upgrades ensued to extend the stem (yes, really) and lose weight. By the end it had very advanced, for the time, Rond air/oil forks and weighed about 25lb.

The Rocky eventually gave way to my first full-susser, a Cannondale Super V, which was, at the time in ’96, a sexy spaceship. After a bit of fettling that weighed in at 26lb and got me over everything the Lake District could throw at me. The relatively steep head angle, racy tyres and terrible brakes made for some exciting, in the wrong way, ridhes!

I was still racing and my quest for speed made a change to a super-fast Trek STP 400 carbon fibre soft-tail the obvious choice in 2001. The carbon fibre was a revelation as was the 21.5lb weight and twangy back end. It was fantastic down south but very limited on rocky terrain up North.

That bike was so good that I kept it until 2008. I hadn’t been racing for ages and most of my pleasure came from big days in the hills in the Lakes and Dales so I took the plunge and bought the Yeti 575, which lasted six months before it was stolen. It weighed 26.5lb but was disappointing unless pointing downhill. The Trek Fuel EX 9.8 that replaced it in 2009 was better almost everywhere and weighed 25lb.

All that to say that I suspect that the focus of many of us who came out of the XC race scene of the early ’90s has been on weight and Singletrack speed at the expense of lateral rigidity, big-hit capability and comfort. The biggest thing I noticed riding my new SB75 is just how of-a-piece these new, heavier designs can be compared with any previous generation of MTB. The extra material that creates the 7.5lb frame on the Yeti is highly visible in the down tube, seat and chain stays and in the rocker mount. It all adds up to stiffness and confidence.

30lb still seems heavy to me and although a 35lb bike may work as commented earlier, it’s not going to be very responsive if you ride up hill or on rolling trails a lot. As with all things MTB, we all assume that everyone rides like us and the great thing is that no one does and that’s what makes mountain biking the interesting hobby that it is, but it does mean that trying to draw conclusions from forum posts can be quite challenging. I also wonder how many people need the amount of suspension that they’re being urged to buy into by the industry. 100mm is very workable in southern England, 120mm with the right geometry will get you through most of what England can throw at you and provide a great buzz. 150-160mm must compromise the bike’s performance on 90% of the rides I do, but would work well if you do uplifts and the like. The only concern is the number of people who post to the forums to say that they’re not a confident descender but they’re buying a bike with a 160mm fork. They’re probably going to hate it as most of their riding will, presumably, not be downhill and the bike isn’t going to transform their ability. As others have said, a skills course could be a better solution.

The Crossmarks are the fastest tyres I’ve ever ridden. They really don’t work in even light loam and forget them in the wet but on dry trails they fly.

I’ve currently running tubeless Ignitor 2.1s and they roll well and corner nicely and find grip in most mid to dry conditions.

If you want something fast, light but which also works in a mixture of conditions then you could consider 2.1 High Rollers. They’re small for their size and roll really well and find grip in most situations.

Non-Maxxis wise, Hutchinson Python 2.0s are fantastic tyres. Nearly as fast as the Crossmark and work really well in a range of conditions other than when it’s really muddy and then you need Maxxis Medusa 2.1s which give amazing confidence in the mud and actually work well in middling conditions too.

Solamanda, I was running about 25% sag on the rear but as I increased the front sag to 30% today (after some experimentation this seems to be best for me) I increased the rear sag to 30% too. What a difference! The bike feels nicely balanced and the fork is responsive without being draining and it’s not blowing through it’s travel too quickly. The rear end is super smooth and traction is excellent, even on a one mile climb on gravel-covered single track that nearly killed me.

Downsides? Brake dive is severe – even with the Active Brake Pivot, the rear end was off the ground following a couple of emergency stops where I missed a turning. And the fork’s sitting a long way into its travel and, guess what, maximum travel is still only 85mm! So I really don’t have much travel helping me over obstacles. Still, the bike felt fun and was very fast compared with last weekend. There were no really big hits on today’s route so it may be that a crash landing will highlight some more travel.

So, the quest for more travel continues but the forks do seem to prefer a fair amount of sag to get them active.

Thanks Solamanda, I’m just going out for a ride now so I’ll try running around 33% sag as you and djglover have recommended. It feels wrong and I’m concerned that it’ll feel like I’m in a nose-dive on the flat but I’m willing to give it go. I’ll report back later.

Juan, thanks for the spanner work, at least it saved everyone else from trying!

garlic, I can only say that I’m glad that people like you don’t develop MTB products or we’d all still be riding steel rigid hardtails with five gears but paying £3K for the priviledge. Why can’t we have skills and decent kit or can you only think about one thing at a time? Do you think Steve Peat would be competitive on a steel hard tail? Nope. Why do you think he spends so long developing and tuning his kit as well as his skills?

The Lakes and easy riding are a bit incompatible! However, there’s a nice loop that you can start from either Near Sawrey or Red Nab (parking here) on the west side of Windermere that takes in Claife Heights. It’s a really nice area to ride of a summer’s eveing with beautiful views.

If you start at Red Nab you can cycle down the side of Windermere to Belt Ash Coppice and then up the bridleway to Far Sawrey then up the road to Near Sawrey and up onto Claife Heights on the bridleway. There are several routes down from Long Height. It’s not a long ride and you could extend it by taking in Grizedale Forest as already mentioned but it’s nice to do as a short evening ride. It’s still hilly and some of the hills are steep but it’s about the easiest access to decent views that I can think of.

The ride over Loughrigg Fell from Brow Head Farm, just outside Ambleside, to Tarn Foot is superb but the climb is pretty steep. None of it’s technical, just steep and relatively long. You can carry on up to Arnside and Sunny Brow (which is a lot more challenging on loose rocks) and down to Knipe Fold (great descent) and back round over Claife Heights.

Barry

djglover, yes, you’re quite right, I was being deliberately simplistic with my analysis of travel, though I’d argue that you only need 50% of negative travel if you’re doing downhill. I still think that there’s a limited amount of usable travel with the F120RL and it’s the same amount whether you have lots of sag or not so much, all you’re doing is affecting what sort of response you get to different sized hits.

Fotorat, I’ve been MTBing for 19 years and remember my first bike was steel had rigid forks (nasty, difficult to remember how much it hurt!) then RockShox Quadras (pointless), then Ronds (actually very good even compared with modern forks but leaky), Pace RC38s (very good for 5 minutes then they leaked constantly), Marzocchi Marathon S (very good but very fiddly to get right) and finally the DT Swiss EXC150s that were on my Yeti which was nicked last month. You’re right about the progression in quality. My complaint about the F120RLs isn’t so much that they only have 80mm of travel – if they worked as well as the fantastic rear end on my Trek Fuel EX9.8 I wouldn’t be bothered for a minute – it’s the fact that they’re letting the bike down that’s annoying me.

Be interesting to see how you get on Juan!

Buzz-lightyear, 100mm of travel would be entirely acceptable as the bump stops will always make the last 10mm almost impossible to use, which is entirely correct as you really don’t want the fork bottoming out harshly, and the last 10mm of ramp-up before that will be incredibly firm as the air will have been compressed to an amazingly small volume by that time.

The fact that you get 100mm of travel would indicate that there is considerably variability between forks as several people, including myself, seem to be unable to get that sort of travel without setting a silly amount of sag. It’s good to know that someone’s got a decent pair!

Martyntr, as I outlined above, I agree that you’ll never get full travel but I’d expect to get 100mm and I’m nowhere near it. My previous DT Swiss EXC150s gave about 125mm of travel without setting them too soft and were much more tunable thanks to the combination of compression and rebound damping. I suspect that the F120RLC would be configurable to give about 100mm of travel as you could set greater sag on that fork without overly compromising small to mid-bump absorption by increasing compression damping.

It may just be that the F120RL is simply too compromised. You can have travel but only at the expense of control and vice-versa.

Djglover, thanks for your experiences, however, as with so many forum posts, this information is of limited value without some understanding of what you ride, how you ride and where you ride.

Additionally, you need to understand the limitations of setting sag as a way of setting up a fork. Sag is a static measurement and, unfortunately, mountain biking is a very dynamic sport. The effect of sag will depend on how you ride. For instance, I ride longer distances and I ride fast. Most of my riding is around Hampshire where I live but I get to The Lakes, The Dales and Wales several times a year. Because I ride long distances fast I use bar ends which enable me to change my hand position and give me more speed on the flat and on climbs. Because I use bar ends and I’m usually in a fairly aggressive position my weight is shifted forwards when I’m riding relative to the more centred position I might take when measuring static sag.

The upshot is that as soon as I start moving my 27mm of static sag turns into about 35mm+ of what we might term ‘dynamic sag’. This has the effect of steepening the head angle and reducing the height of the bottom bracket. If I set 30-35mm of static sag then my head angle is way too steep and my pedals too readily bottom in tractor ruts (of which there are many around here).

It may be that you have a very high stem, bar, stack combo and you ride a more upright position which enables you to use more static sag since much of your weight is on the rear of your bike and it may be that you ride relatively short (say upto 20 miles), playful rides where speed is of limited importance, ditto long distance comfort and that you’re more interested in big hit response than initial and mid-travel response which will blow through more quickly with 33% or 50% static sag.

You should also bear in mind that 33% sag means you only start with, at best, 80mm of potential travel. ‘Dynamic sag’ will likely reduce that to 70mm and the bump stops and ramp-up will reduce it further to 55-60mm. So, you’re getting no more travel than I am and you’re likley to be suffering from an unacceptably steepened head angle and poor small to medium bump absorption as a trade off for better big hit response, though still with incredibly limited travel.

Running 50% sag means that you’re running a very steep head angle and getting very limited travel though your front end will pogo nicely, if that’s what you want.

In essence you’re working around a problem with the overly simple design of your Fox forks which do not have a design that manages the spring rate of the air chamber effectively.

Feel free to disagree but please provide a considered reasoning.