My HT is 28lbs with fairly light Revs (1700g), light-ish Pacenti rims, no dropper, Renthals etc etc….some extremely optimistic weights being thrown around in this thread!

Are the runs really only1/3 of the duration of an Enduro descent? How come the downhillers don’t ride down the whole hill then?

Not sure if trolling but I’ll bite.

The whole hill will have loads of boring featureless fields and access roads….can’t really say I’m interested in watching that. The course designers usually take the most technical 3-5 mins of a given mountain and race there, it makes for good viewing for spectators, good racing for competitors and good TV coverage….also short sharp courses allow good line-of-sight marshalling for medical/safety reasons….15 minute long Enduro stages don’t have that.

I like this thread, some valid points from all concerned.

Firstly you need to dismiss the one off air shocks Fox are making for Gwin to race with, they’re not production ready or available to you or I….likewise the one off coil Fox fitted to Graves bike for the last EWS race shouldn’t really feature in the discussion, these are racing prototypes that may or may not make it to the shop floor.

I’ve been vocal in the past re. the advantages of coil forks, up until a few months ago I was running a TFtuned coil sprung Sektor that was bloody ace….smooth on small bumps, no bottoming out on tough stuff and stunningly reliable….I just couldn’t see the appeal with air forks that leak, require inflating, regular servicing etc….

That said I did rate the performance of a Fox RP23 that came on a Saracen Ariel I owned a few years ago…the Float-32s it had were dire but that’s a different story….the shock was very good.
So when a ‘cheap’ Revelation SoloAir came up recently on Wiggle I took the plunge, I didn’t want to replace the Sektors but like a numpty I’d cable tied brake hoses to the crown steerer and caused some unsightly wear…new forks were needed and 26inch stock seemed to be going cheap.

The Revs have been great, easily as good as the coil spring Sektors out on the trail, I can’t comment on longevity yet but I have taken them on XC type runs around the local woods and uplift days all over the place…just play with the pressures and away you go….it’s got me thinking.

My next bike is going to be a DH bike and I’d thought I would do the usual coil shock and perhaps get flashy with some titanium springs in the fork but now I’m not sure…seeing how good these new Revs are and how good the RP23 from four years ago was I think I’ll probably go frame only and build it with whatever DH air stuff is on the market at the time….realistically with a recent house move this is probably a year or two away, if I was building one now I’d probably still use a coil shock but air forks.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m a convert but I welcome the additional choice, air suspension is definitely bridging the gap to coil stuff for gravity type riding.

(You can keep tubeless tyres however!…far too much faff, I’m a serial tyre swapper so breaking beads, cleaning up sealant, playing with compressors etc isn’t for me. Thanks to Snakeskin and Exo sidewalls I haven’t pinch flatted in years and can happily run 25psi all day long).

That looks great but I fear there wasn’t enough footage of 29ers, rigids, plus sized tyres or single speeds for it to be a hit with the STW crowd.

My gut instinct was the Trance as I don’t know much about the Rush….however a little googling reveals a Dirt Magazine review of the Rush from 2009 that is full of praise.
They reckon the long wheelbase and slack head angle makes for an awesome bike despite fairly short travel, only thing they recommended was swapping the stem for a shorter item but everyone does that these days now.

Google cannondale Rush, the Dirt review is on the first page of results about halfway down, it’s a glowing review from a publication not afraid to slate a bike when needed.

Do you do much jumping on it? i’d like it to handle 3-4 feet drops but i’m not sure the 77mm of travel (after the sag point) would handle this well.

It will be fine, how do you think people jump hardtails with zero rear travel?!…..

Lovely bike by the way, I really like the mismatched travel thing that lots of the manufacturers are doing now.
It’s like they’ve finally realised that not everyone wants to wallow around in 160mm of rear travel, it’s like pedalling through treacle on most of the ones I’ve tried recently….if I was buying a trail full-suss at the moment this would be on the shortlist with the Mega-TR, Orange Segment, On-One Codeine etc….fun, burly and aggro up front but taut and efficient out back….like a reverse mullet if you like?!

Yes wheels like EN521s and EX721s are dated in that they’re heavy and narrow by modern standards but arguably with bikes becoming longer, lower, slacker, having more travel and likely being ridden on more rough stuff than ever before then these wheels are ace in that they’re cheap and virtually bombproof.

It’s no good putting blingy, lightweight, wide rims on your AM bike if they dent, crack, go out of true every other ride etc etc….if I was building a burly FS on a budget I’d be looking at the Mavic EN and EX range and they’d probably outlast whatever bike you put them on!

Stevious, the carbon thing and engineered flex is a genuine property of the material and if done well can be great….my concern is that Ducati spent several seasons and millions of pounds and still couldn’t get their carbon chassis to work properly or flex in a way the riders understood, in the end they reverted to Alu.

I’m skeptical that a bike manufacturer has cracked it where MotoGP failed….it just seems to be bike manufacturers claiming additional stiffness every year and no comments about flex like its a taboo subject or something.

I’ve barely used my Trance and fit firmly in the Hardtail fans category….but now I’ve built up the FS I wouldn’t be without it.
When I sling it around in anger it’s so much faster over tech stuff than the HT and being able to plough through stuff is fun on full suspension when in the mood, they compliment each other and I’d only sell if I needed the space or money.

The flex thing is interesting. We seem to have convinced ourselves (with some help from ‘the industry’) that flex is a bad thing.

In MotoGP around the early noughties they pursued chassis stiffness above all else and thought the top notch Ohlins, Showa etc suspension would take care of the rest….what they found in reality was that when a bike is leaned over the sliders for the shock and forks don’t work nearly as well as when in the vertical plane….

….as advanced (and eye wateringly expensive) as MotoGP suspension was it couldn’t change the fact that a fork doesn’t work as well at 45 degrees as it does when stood upright, they found ‘chatter’ from the surface was travelling up the forks and into the ultra stiff chassis and unsettling the riders who found it hard to gauge grip levels etc.

They got round it by engineering flex into the chassis and it’s now accepted that a certain amount of chassis flex is desirable as they still haven’t found a way to eliminate ‘stiction’ from forks when asked to work at an angle other than vertical….now I know the speeds are somewhat slower in MTB than MotoGP but it does make me smile that MTBers seem to be going through the same process of wanting ever stiffer chassis….and then resorting to plus sized/large volume tyres to get the grip back and improve comfort levels….which just wouldn’t be necessary with a chassis that had a proper engineered level of flex built into it.

Always amusing when someone talks about putting Pikes (or similar) on the front of their hardtail to stiffen things up!….really?!….go with slimmer stanchions like on a Revelation and enjoy a far nicer ride.
Anyway rant over, give me a ‘flexy’ rear end of an Orange-5 over something so stiff it can’t track properly and skips around all over the place.

Yep, seen plenty of people stop to activate their ‘dropper’ post…..I’ve currently got the Decathlon/Btwin £30 one on my HT, seems great but on the first ride I forgot it was there half the time which shows I didn’t really need one and it is just a luxury, nice but a luxury nonetheless.

I had a Gravity Droppper which was about £150 on the big bike and that was used most rides but it went with the nature of the bike.
I was without a dropper for about a year and all I did was drop the saddle about an inch below optimum for pedalling….and that was it, steep rough stuff I just went up on the pedals and moved back….if it required more than that I’d usually stop to scope it out anyway and while looking to see if it was rideable I’d manually drop the seatpost with the QR clamp.

Stinkytrooper, the Giant Trance can make a good fist of swapping between trail and all-mountain/enduro, in standard trim its 140mm front and back but Giant warranty the frame for forks up to 160mm at which point the head angle slackens out to 66 degrees and it becomes plough-tastic charging through things.

You wouldn’t even need to buy a second set of forks as the Trance-SX comes with travel adjust forks from 160-140 I believe, if you’re going frame only you could have some lightweight 140mm Revelations for trail use and some 160mm Pikes under the stairs for when you go on uplift days.

I was in your position this time last year, head said Trance and heart said Orange-5….I liked the fact the 5 could take a coil shock (on a Trance the linkage gets in the way) but I wanted to try the DW/maestro link suspension on the Giant, I love the way a 5 looks….they’re certainly unique!….but I liked that the Trance was lighter….in the end it came down to price (as these things often do) and I couldn’t ignore the fact that the Trance frame was £500 cheaper and the dealer was willing to throw in a dropper-post with the Giant.

Head ruled and I bought the Trance, in 140 mode it was great but I tend to run it all the time with the 160mm forks now…I still look at 5’s but I’ll scratch that itch with their new 324 DH bike later this year instead!

are the shorter travel bikes capable of DH style uplifts

Yes, yes they are…tyre tech/tread patterns have come on leaps and bounds in recent years….ditto brakes….frame geometry is now universally leaning towards what would have been DH-bike angles a few years ago etc etc….these are all more important than how much travel the bike has.

I’ve been doing uplifts all year on a HT, the 66-67 degree head angle, awesome Magic Mary tyres, ridiculously good Deore-615 brakes and lovely Renthal bars have all been of more importance to me than the fact i dont have any rear bounce and ‘only’ 140mm up front.
Think of the bike as a whole not just its stated travel.

Best FS i owned was when Saracen relaunched few years ago and i treated myself to an Ariel-140….it had 140mm of travel but was well reviewed by just about everybody and garnering the praise in particular of Ride.io/southern downhill who called it a mini-DH bike and promptly bought the long termer they’d been loaned with their own money.

If i’d listened to forum bulls##t at the time i’d have gone with something that had more travel, problem is bigger isnt always better and the new Pike and even the Fox-34 werent out back then so long travel bikes were coming with noodly Fox-32s or Revs (which arent bad actually) and anything properly long got heavy old Lyriks that changed the character of the bike completely…no thanks.

Things are slightly different now with 160mm forks available with 34-36mm stanchions depending on brand and sub 2kg weight but i still think on UK trails a 140mm bike is about perfect….all 160mm bikes i’ve tried have given up some pedalling ability in exchange for more travel/slacker angles and the shorter travel stuff i’ve tried hasnt worked for me (rode a friend’s Camber and thought it was awful, other people love them!)….i like the Mega-TR, its a nice compromise of 150mm up front but keeping things taut out back for pedalling with 130mm, theres a few bike floating round currently like that….i’m intrigued by the Orange 29er that does a similar thing (Segment 120/110).

Just to properly confuse you Dirt magazine reviewed a standard Orange-5 and said it was the perfect bike if you could have only one. They said the 140mm was great for all round UK trail use and the odd uplift day….but they also said to buy a set of 160mm forks and a coil spring shock ….they reckoned you could swap to 160mm forks and put the coil shock on and have a great Alps bike…something to think about?!

Is there anything I can do other than return again?

Return them again, when you get the replacements sell them and buy something else.

Pikes are good but they’re not the be-all-and-end-all of MTB forks, the new Fox-34s are supposed to be very good, the 36s are obviously very good but also very expensive….Manitou Mattocs are getting good reviews even when compared to Pikes, as are X-Fusion Sweeps.

Try something else, after 2 warranty returns (if you do it again) i’d go with a different brand.

I like the industrial lines of the Liteville.

This is where the direct sales companies come into their own and why i’m such a fan.

Young lad has 2k to spend on a bike, wants a decent long travel trail bike that can turn its hand to racing and handle some DH runs….sounds like the moon on a stick, in the past he’d have very few options and they’d all be pretty expensive!

Buy a new decent frame only from the likes of Yeti, Banshee etc and then beg, steal and borrow for the rest of the parts ending up with a machine that is a bit of a Frankenbike for several months/years until he can buy decent wheels, drivetrain etc seperately along the way.

Buy a complete but secondhand bike by one of the main manufacturers like Giant, Spesh, Trek et al….not bad but throwing 2k at something already owned is disappointing in my opinion…that is a lot of money (if you dont think it is then have a word with yourself), its especially extravagant when talking about a bicycle!….for that money most people would prefer new….buying secondhand you also risk being a step behind with changing standards and having an already obsolete 2k bike sat in your shed.

Buy new and complete from one of the main brands but it’ll be adorned with the worst of the OEM market components so that Spesh, Gaint, Trek etc could bring it to market for less than 2k….the worst part about owing a Trek a few years ago was all the in-house Bontrager crap it came adorned with….ended up spending loads to get nice bars, stem, seatpost, wheels etc….false economy for enthusiasts, fine for the casual user.

Now with the likes of YT, Radon, Commencal, Rose, Canyon etc you can be the first owner,
enjoy a good OEM spec to rival what you may have chosen if you building from frame only, warranty etc….i think they’re bloody brilliant and my next bike will almost certainly be from one of the firms above.

Yeah Vallnord is a good shout, lifts open into the 2nd week of September i belleve.

Genuine ‘lol’ at the naievity from the public about this and the head-in-the-sand approach from various governing bodies.

I used to lift weights at a gym owned by a former Mr Universe and then current IFBB Pro bodybuilder, his ‘livelihood’ was the gym but his lifestyle, home, cars he drove etc didnt tally up with what the gym looked like it made.

Over the years we became friends, he briefly dated my sister and we trained together sometimes….him always trying to get me to compete, me always being horrified at the idea of actually dieting and covering myself in oil while wearing those teeny tiny trunks on stage!….during one of our more candid conversations about steroids he told me that was how he made his money….its something i’d long suspected but what came next did shock me.

He said he was essentially in business with two guys KK and PB who used legitimate supplement companies as the front for the real business of selling PEDs to athletes….he then reeled off a list of names they sold to….my jaw hit the ground, genuine household names in athletics and rugby mainly but he did say there were some footballers as clients….this conversation was a good 10 years ago so what on earth are WADA, the IAAF, the RFU etc doing in their battle against PEDs?….sweet nothing by the looks of it!

As others have said, money is a great motivator and if you can make yourself financially secure by playing the sport you love, worshiped by fans, travel the world etc then the risk from PEDs (both health and getting busted) is seen as being worth it.
Some just like to win and even amateurs with no real money to win will dope just so they can enjoy the ‘victory’….there is plenty of information around on steroid half lifes, how long can be detected for etc….you’ve got to be a real idiot to get it wrong and test positive, things like Insulin can be used with virtual impunity as the test is not widely used and didnt even exist before 2008 i believe?….new peptides are coming onto the market each month and although some of them are closely related enough to existing compounds to trigger a positive there are also some that wont and the drug testing labs are playing catch-up the whole time.

Personally i’d like to see independent drug testing bodies and labs (this is what WADA was supposed to be) but going on from that i’d like these bodies to be able to break the news and sanction the athletes involved….true autonomy.
What we have currently is a farcical situation whereby a lab comes across a positive test,confirms with the B-sample….informs WADA who are then obliged to inform the governing body of whatever sport said athlete plays….its then up to that organisation (UCI, IAAF, FIFA etc) whether to make the positive test public and whether to sanction for the infringement…a lot of the time they dont!
As somebody else said, these governing bodies are there to ensure the growth and sustainability of the sport, the expansion of profitability of the sport etc….catching dopers and harming the image and profits is not in their interests which is why WADA needs complete autonmy, if they get a confirmed positive they should be able to go public and sanction the athlete without the governing body of that particular sport getting involved….the job of the governing body would then be PR, damage control, potential rehabilitation of the athlete following the ban, anti drugs campaigns etc….but having the governing body responsible for growth and profit in the sport AND catching drugs cheats is never going to work well as its not in their interest to catch dopers….it’d be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Take responsibility for sanctioning athletes away from the governing bodies and you would go a huge way to reducing the overt use in some sports, you’ll never get rid completely but the toothless approach shown by USATF and others would be taken out of the equation….i used the US Track and Field as an example as its now only in recent years coming to light that Carl Lewis tested positive all through the 80s and 90s but because it was left up to the governing body to sanction him they didnt….ever….as he was their golden goose, the poster boy for good ol’ USA against the Soviets.

There is a massive conflict of interest that nobody really seems interested in solving.

Deore 615, can usually be found for £60 a pair online somewhere.

I wouldn’t save money with poor brakes on a DH bike!….180-203 rotors and they’re plenty good enough.

Shanaze Reade and Rachel Atherton tear up the Team Sprint in the 2020 Olympics….awesome, wonder if it’ll happen!?….didn’t Reade win World Champs gold with Pendleton a few times in that event?

Budget constraints aside, would the current 140 Revs with a down-the-line coil conversion be an ideal long term pairing with the frame?

Sounds perfect (and freakily enough what i’m doing at the moment)…run them as long as you can with the standard air spring, i currently have some air spring Revs on my HT, in their current Motion Control DNA form they’re the best air forks i’ve used yet….but as soon as they start losing air, sucking down and any of the other problem that air forks suffer with they’ll be off to TFtuned for a coil conversion.

I have a 2015 650b Trance running wonderfully plush X-Fusion suspsension front and rear, i have 160mm up front giving me an ‘enduro-tastic’ head angle of 66 degrees and have swapped the rear shock from 200×51 to 200×57 to take rear travel from 140mm to 155mm….its light, rides great and is more bike than i’ll ever need…..and yet i dont ride it much as i’m always on the HT….how does that work?!?!….the HT is heavier, runs a steeper head angle that only steepens the more the fork is compressed, has 26 inch wheels, harsh ride quality etc etc….and yet i love it, i’m not saying i’ll never sell it (the Dartmoor Hornet looks tempting) but i’ll certainly never be without a HT….i could sell the FS tomorrow and not miss it, same cant be said for the HT….theres just something slightly more engaging in the way they ride, post pics of that Sovereign when its all done.

Manon freely admits she’s having problems with technique this year and some bad habits have crept in….on Pinkbike she said her manager Will Longden emailed her a pic from Fort Bill (i think?) where she is looking at her front wheel instead of down the track…she joked about it, he’d included the caption “chin up” but the message was clear, she is spending too much time worrying about where her front wheel is going that she isnt reading the trail far enough ahead and therefore isnt able to carry as much speed as she would like….her words not mine.

I was intrigued and watched for her run at MSA and she’s right, the same as those spoofs of Froome looking at stems….Manon stares down at her front wheel.
Its something i’m guilty of but i’m a rank amateur, it was interesting to read and then watch a pro suffering from similar bad habits….i’m sure once she breaks the habit and raises her vision she’ll be right there with Atherton again…..trouble is something will have caused her to start doing it in the first place…nerves?…that crash at Fort Bill?…this is when a good Sports Psychologist earns their money.

Claudio was saying similar things about Neko, Warner asked him why Brendan is in resurgent form and Claudio simply replied; “having Neko in the team has fired him up”….on the flipside he said Neko is struggling mentally since his crash in Lourdes….the head game in sport is not to be underestimated!

Track was immense, a proper test of rider and bike….and long at nearly 5 mins….more of the same please UCI, less sub 3 minute tracks and Bike Parks and more like MSA….Fort Bill can stay, it has a similar feel to it from what I can see, they just need to widen some of the top sections to give riders the option for different lines….can’t wait for Val di Sole later in the season!

I love watching Ratboy ride, as little pedalling as possible, loose on the bike and let it roll….sublime, looks slow until you see the splits/sectors come up and realise he’s fastest!….also liked seeing Loic dig in and really ride once his chain came off, huge respect and only adds credibility to the thoughts of Mojo Suspension’s Chris Porter who despises clutch mechs and stated publicly that they interfere with how the suspension is supposed to work….once the chain comes off the rear of the bike can do the job it was designed for without pedalling, shifting etc getting in the way.

Sod’s law dictates that if you don’t have a spare it’ll break but if you do payout for a spare you’ll likely never need it….Sod’s law innit!?

Buy some straight steerer coil Sektors, the 32mm seals will be available for years due to the Revelation continuing in the range and being a light and well liked fork.
Coils because they’re bombproof and dead easy to service yourself.

I did what you’re thinking of doing with a Dialled Alpine a few years back, sold it as I bought into the nonsense that I needed a 44mm headtube for future compatibility and a fat seat tube for a dropper post I didn’t even have!
Crap decision by me, I miss steel hardtails with delicate stays and small headtubes….I ended up with a Ragley that gives me tapered steerer options and dropper post compatibility but it doesn’t ride anything like as nicely as the Alpine or the 456-Evo I had around the same time.

Yep, the lack of ‘line of sight marshalling’ is one of the reasons British Cycling dropped Enduro. I would feel safer doing a full on DH race, at least if you crash the marshals see it and can render aid immediately, they can also pinpoint your location on the track for medical personnel to come to you.
Some of the EWS stages have been 30mins long, I’d hate to be a downed rider in that situation, helpless until another rider comes across you.

RIP.

I dont know if its undue pressure from TV directors screaming in the motorcyclists ear pieces or pressure from the race organisers doing the same thing but this sort of thing has got to stop….i cringe every time another useless camera wielding motorbike skims against a rider to get to something up ahead that is supposedly so important that it requires endangering life and limbs of other competing riders.

I’m as patriotic as anybody and chuffed to bits for Yates but this isnt the way anybody wants to win, mechanicals on the bike and punctures are part of racing but this is entirely irresponsible and avoidable….riders need to start thumping the camera bike riders the same way they thump members of the crowd when they get out of control….and lodge complaints, loads of complaints….bugger it, i’d sue the tit on the bike too.

Rumours on other sites suggesting some of the big hitters you’d normally expect to see in the top-10 have intentionally held back in qualifying so they can come down the hill earlier today as rain is predicted at some point during the Men’s final….not sure i believe that or not, i know Matti Lehikoinen employed this tactic at Champery in 2007 (and won) but riders are missing out on points from qualifying and i cant see guys like Minnaar and Gwin, who are in the hunt for the overall points title doing the same.

Anyway, good to see Hart right up there….if its wet and muddy like his World Title run in 2011 then i reckon its his….I also think he only needs the one breakthrough Word Cup win and he’ll be on a roll and winning them left right and centre, fingers crossed.

Brosnan also looking good and it was the same World Champs in 2011 at a treacherous Champery that Troy took Junior Gold with a time that would’ve bagged him a Silver in the Seniors…behind Hart…so for me its between those two today…if its wet of course.

If it stays dry?….anybody really, its so open this year.

Minnaar is capable of coming out of nowhere for the win.

Brendan could win, he’s showing great form this year and having Neko as a team mate is the kick up the arse he needed, he’s another one who i reckon just needs to win one and then would clean up for the next few years.

Bryceland was apparently setting great first split times in practice and is supposed to be fully healed now.

Gee is Gee, always a solid bet….needs to step it up this year against the fast new juniors who’ve graduated to the ranks but he is always a threat.

Loic is consistently fast this year, starting to look like ‘Mr 2nd place’ at the moment but just needs that first win before it starts to become a big mental stumbling block.

I’d like to see CRC’s Joe Smith turn his domestic form into WC success but like Simmonds and Dale at Saracen i just dont see him in the same class as the names above.

Gutierrez is a dark horse, blisteringly fast during dry practice and has kept it pinned during wet qualifying too so starting to show WC level consistency…that’d be nice to see.

Dream pick for me would be Sam Hill though, he qualified around 34th (i think?) and is getting better the more riding he does….some rumours suggest he’s deliberately coming back slowly and showing great maturity and that he might be faster at the moment than he’s letting on…some more far fetched rumours go on from that to suggest he’s keeping his powder dry for the World Champs in September.

The course looks great, i’ve been watching videos on Pinkbike, Dirt, Wideopen etc over the last couple of days and in the dry it looks like the riders are skating across marbles and in the wet those fast rock sections look bloody lethal….those guys and girls really earn their money!

Oli575, the Snakeskin Trailstar is fine, far less wear than an out and out tacky compound but more than good enough to use on the front of the bike. Had one on my HT most of the year so far, only time I’ve taken it off is now its dry at BPW, as others have said a Minion rides better on hardpack trails like those.

Going to the Black Mountain Cycle Centre next week though and it’s dirt there from the videos I’ve seen so the Mary will be going back on.

As Milky said, brakes are an area you don’t want failing suddenly.

I use XT rotors which seem to have a nice amount of material and combine them with soft pads from any old generic supplier (Superstar, Uberbike etc)….probably means I go through pads at a faster rate than some but even on my basic Deore-615 brakes the power is awesome….same combo but with my Saints and it’s like being pushed into reverse!

The OP’s rotors do have a ‘style over substance’ look to them….like those hideous rotors you get with edges cut out/designed to look like flames, teeth etc….yuck.

Haha, I can get on board with that thinking Derek!

Give them a legal entry and the need for smuggling goes away. Why is immigration a “problem”?

Limited resources, limited NHS, limited education establishments, etc etc….while its a wonderful notion to think that everyone coming here is going to work, pay tax and become a net contributor a lot won’t and will instead play the benefits game, work on the black market for cash and pay no tax and then to add insult to injury send the money ‘home’ to whichever country they’ve come from…brilliant strategy.

I liked Hels idea, take in the workers, give them NI numbers, tax from the get go and no benefits for a set number of years, seems a fair deal. Prove you’re here to work and not milk the system.

I believe the wheelbase on a 5 lengthens under compression so take that into account, there has to be some slack for the inevitable load while riding.

You don’t need DH casings, I’m running tubes still with either Maxxis Exo sidewall protection or Schwalbe’s Snakeskin version.

Hardtail, rear runs at 30psi, front at 25psi….I ride all the usual South East single track and Welsh stuff, book on the odd uplift day and haven’t punctured in any form for years.

I have an attic full of thin walled ‘normal’ tyres that I used for years and did get flats with…once I decided to spend a bit more on quality casings the flats stopped.

Exo or Snakeskin is the answer!

I don’t get it?….surely you buy wider bars if you want a wider grip?
All wide grips do is give you more hand space.

Always fit them flush with your bar end plugs, grips should never overhang the ends of the bars.

Pads?…no.
Helmet?…when mandatory like certain trails, racing etc.
Full face?….uplift days only.

If you’re buying older Minions then the 2.35 is actually quite narrow, if you’re looking at newer ones the 2.3 comes up a good size.

I have an old style 2.5 super tacky that sometimes sees duty on the front and just recently put a 2.3 DHR2 on the back, great combination for the uplift days I’ve done recently.

Why would I want to do that you weirdo

I ride a bike designed for 29 inch wheels which is what it will have fitted.

Havent you heard Renton?…the powers that be in the bike industry have decided that 29ers are now old hat and that sticking 650b wheels in your 29er frame with 2.8 rubber will make you gazillion times faster again!….or some such industry bo@@ocks….its called 650b+ because as we all know putting a ‘plus’ sign with the product name makes it immediately better than what came before….or some such industry bo@@ocks.

Anyway I’m finding my failure mode is usually front sliding out so assuming weight needs to come forwards right? Except that feels scary in case I hit a bump and take a dive over the bars.

This is what short stems and slack head angles are supposed to prevent.

I had similar at a sandy Rogate-DH, was leaning to far off the back due to the steepness and of course the front was then running wide, folding/tucking etc….had to brave it and commit to moving a bit further forward on the bike, the result was the front could now dig in and allow me to steer.

There is a happy medium where you should be riding mostly centred on the bike with fore and aft weight shifting only being done in extreme circumstances.
I’m a fan of the short stem craze as I do feel it allows me to ride enough of the front for good grip without having that horrible over the bars feeling.

Might not be the quote you’re thinking of but ‘King’ Kenny Roberts from Motorcycle Grandprix racing fame said:

“No one ever lost the front on the throttle”

Implying that the front only breaks traction when you ask too much of it like weighting it while braking and trying to steer at the same time….his philosophy was to brake hard on the straights then use the throttle to slide a Grandprix bike round the bends, effectively steering from the back….it came from his oval racing dirt track days in the U.S. and was new to Europeans who would trail brake into the bend and try to carry as much corner speed as possible often asking too much of the front tyre and crashing.

Probably not relevant to this thread but a great theory from a great racer.