We have a Belter 16 on rim brakes and a Belter 20 on cable discs. Neither have been an issue for the little riders or for maintenance, but the discs are certainly “better” once they get out onto steeper, longer hills. But for a very first pedal bike I don’t think it matters as long as the brakes actually work. So I wouldn’t stress over it too much. The Belter bikes themselves are great.

I have no problem with either private or state education. I do have a problem with running both systems concurrently. The education system should be built around education being either ALL private or ALL state, not both. A mix of both fosters inequality. The same issue for private healthcare. The more money you have the more of an advantage you gain.

Welcome to capitalism. You could always try socialism if you think that’s going to be better. It’s certainly been tried before and didn’t look like much fun for the masses. The more money you have the more choices you are free to make. That applies to anything and everything in life. It might not be fair, but to quote Churchill:-

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

Time to move on and choose a new shop for your next purchase. I can’t see much point in chasing something like this entirely on the principle that the shop “might” have been telling you porkies. It would be different if you were significantly out of pocket over the situation, but sounds more like you’ve actually lucked in here.

I recently visited a suspension company, who to my surprise also made a few general recommendations to my overall setup.

One of these was to roll my bars much much more forward than I had them.

Was that based on them actually seeing how you were sat on the bike or just some generic piece of advice? I usually just start with the bars in their marked neutral position and tweak from there if I’m not happy. I can’t actually remember the last time I felt the need to tweak them forward or back.

But having just bought a new bike I had given it a little thought and this thread has reminded me to experiment a little. Given the current “trend” toward shorter stems I’m a little surprised at the advice of rolling the bars forward, but then we don’t know how far you already had them rolled back?

Yeah. Have a few key hobbies and interest in each waxes and wanes

This ^ for me too. I’m always keen to ride but life often gets in the way and then I sometimes lose motivation for a while and forget about the whole thing. Sometimes it can be for several years like after our kids were born, but usually its just a seasonal thing. As winter approaches I will typically go into ski mode until spring. I can’t be arsed with winter riding anymore.

I’m taking the piss. Can you not tell? Jeez. I wasn’t even being subtle.

Chiefs composite of some of your riding comments are interesting.

If you do ride DH sat down, there is simply no way you you are reaching speeds where LLS is of any benefit. It’s clear to me now why you can’t understand LLS riders perspective.

Ok that’s cool. I probably had a sense of humour failure by that point last night!
No I’m not riding DH sat down, despite Chief’s “interpretation” of my riding comments. I do however tend to favour sitting when I can and pedal through stuff. I always thought that was one of the nice features about long travel full sussers over more lively HTs etc. I did also have a Cannondale Scalpel at the other end of the XC spectrum.

I’m an average sort of all-round rider on the whole. I’m neither an XC whippet or DH charger. You could perhaps say I’m the average UK trail rider. Like many people I do prefer descending to climbing, but I enjoy both on the whole. I’m the kind of guy that would normally choose a “trail” bike over an “XC” racer or “Enduro”. Yet trail bikes seem suddenly skewed heavily toward the enduro end of the market and that was the reason I started this thread i.e. to get some perspective of the “new skool LLS” market.

What I’ve learnt so far is that people are pushing their limits a lot more than they were 5 years ago (apparently) and that modern LLS bikes have no real downside over their more XCish siblings (bikes that would have been considered a bit OTT for trail riding a few years ago). As someone mentioned early on in this thread, bikes keep changing but the reviewers churn out the same old comments as they always did.

I guess I really need to ride a modern “LLS trail” bike at this point to see what I’m missing out on.

How you’ve interpreted the responses and concluded that most riders agree with you (unless they’re riding super fast on super gnarly trails) is a prime example of how bad the human brain is at dealing with data and why most anecdotal evidence is misinterpreted due to the bias of the observer.

You write this ^ and then proceed to dissect some of my 5 year old posts with the most incredible amount of observer bias you could ever possibly imagine. Like this little gem:-

So now you’re in your 50s, back then you were riding downhill SITTING DOWN. And you were really obsessed with having something nimble but ‘plush’ presumably due to SITTING DOWN for actual downhill riding:

The reality is that like many full suss riders I like to pedal MOSTLY seated whenever I can and I do like a bit of comfort. It doesn’t literally mean I ride DH sitting down or never stand on the pedals like you seem to be imagining. So perhaps you should consider your own observer bias when you read into anecdotes purely to serve your own opinion.

As for this:-

Despite all that – you went and bought an Enduro 29, which despite being a bit short, steep and tall was widely considered one of the fastest bikes around if you could handle it, an extremely long travel 29er monster truck. For some reason that approach was THE RIGHT APPROACH (maybe because you bought that bike?)

But this time you’ve decided to go for a shorter travel XC bike – which is now THE RIGHT APPROACH.

This is actually the whole point of this very thread! 5 years ago I decided to choose what was at the time considered to be, in your words, “an extremely long travel 29er monster truck”. I was debating at the time between the Camber (shorter travel than I was used to), the stumpy (more in line with my previous bikes) and the Enduro (longer travel with it’s more contemporary geometry at the time). So 5 years on I have now chosen a shorter travel “XC bike” which happens to have pretty much the same geometry as my “monster truck” Enduro. Pretty much the only difference is an inch of travel and longer chain stays:-

Head angle 67.5 vs 67.5
Seat angle 75.0 vs 74.5
Reach 445 vs 453
ETT 617 vs 626
Chainstay 430 vs 440
Wheelbase 1183 vs 1190
Front travel 160 vs 130
Rear travel 155 vs 130

So my observation is that in 5 years bikes like my Enduro are now considered by the industry to be “XC bikes” and “trail bikes” (never mind enduro bikes) are now something way more LLS. If we look at the geo for a 2014 Camber Evo it now looks like something off a different planet:-

Head Angle 68.8
Seat Angle 73.3
Reach 432
ETT 617
Chainstay 451
Wheelbase 1161

MBR described this ^ at the time as:-

“120mm travel 29er with aggressive spec and geometry
Evo model is slacker, lower, longer travel and gets wider bars and fatter tyres”

“The perfect blend of handling prowess and mile-munching efficiency
Improved Spec and better looks for less money than last year
Still some of the best rear suspension in the business”

So in reality my kind of bike choice hasn’t really changed much at all in 5 years. But the industry is certainly labelling them up quite differently! There were a couple of reasons why I chose to go for a shorter travel bike this time around:-

1. It’s hard to find anything with longer travel that really isn’t a monster truck these days
2. I was never fully convinced I really needed a 160 mm travel bike and riding the Enduro for 5 years kind of confirmed that. Especially as I’m generally riding less away from home.
3. Shorter travel bikes seem to be getting more capable and are more or less built like 150/160 mm bikes from a few years ago

Now off you go and dissect these comments with your observer bias to show how wrong I am here. I’m genuinely interested to see what you make of it.

In other words, you started a thread because you thought something and you haven’t learnt anything because you’re too convinced that your original hypothesis was actually a credible theory. Slow clap.

I love the irony in this.

The bulk of riders have tried some form of LLS and find it to be preferable, but some people don’t like this because it doesn’t fit in with their conspiracy theories and confirmation bias about their own bike.

What’s with all the dramatics? I’m simply asking where people think the limit is with LLS for average trail riding? I was fully into it too initially. I’m not trying to justify any bike choice past or present.

f your latest 130mm bike does everything well but the 160mm isn’t much more of a compromise on the up’s

That’s just it though I am finding that my 130 mm bike is actually night and day better on the ups compared to my 160 mm bike. I didn’t expect so much of an improvement as I had previously convinced myself that my 160 mm bike was a really decent climber. I was also swayed by reviews at the time.

Still, it seems you DO have form on other forums and didn’t get it there either.

Not really. I’ve just seen how forum debates tend to go whether I started them or not. Basically if anyone dares to question the “trend” of the day then they tend to get ridiculed for it by those who have bought into it the most. I just thought super wide AM skis were a good parallel here and interestingly that fad eventually did take a U-turn back to slightly narrower lighter models.

new skool geometry.

Seriously, do we really have to call it that?

How you’ve interpreted the responses and concluded that most riders agree with you

I don’t remember making that conclusion. Quite the opposite actually. I think most people buy into the idea that they really do need a bigger, slacker bike.

Wow! Some of you guys really do take yourselves seriously. This is the first time I’ve ever thought mainstream trail bikes were maybe getting a bit silly for the sort of riding most people actually do. But judging by some of these responses you would think I was questioning their manhood or something. But I shouldn’t be surprised really. Same thing happens on ski forums if you question why everyone is suddenly riding blue runs on 120 mm wide powder skis. It’s pretty much guaranteed to get the “my cock is bigger than yours” response.

Maybe you should then rephrase your postings on here. Because your current bike shopping process has basically involved you saying “all of you riding bikes with more long and slack geometry than I’ve chosen are pointlessly ‘overbiked’”, which frankly is rather tiresome.

29″ wheels do feel “slow” to initiate a turn, in a similar way to slack head angles. If you haven’t noticed that, then I’m surprised you consider yourself the supreme arbiter of the line between quick and sluggish bike handling.

Yeah I do reckon a lot of people get carried away with much bigger bikes than they really need and the marketing encourages it more than ever. It seems to be the complete opposite of what I used to see on this very same forum 15 years ago when rigid singlespeeds were all the rage.

You can disagree if you like and most people who have replied to this thread have had good reason to choose bigger bikes, but most of those guys appear to be racing EWS or DH as well as more mundane trails. Others have kind of agreed that there is some limit to how far you would want to go with the LLS trend. I apologise if I appear to have hit a nerve in questioning why the industry is heading ever further down this path.

All relative indeed. I find 29 wheels lazy and slow around my typical southern UK single tracks. But I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone they’re over biked.

Well firstly I don’t tell anyone that they are over-biked when out on the trails. I just think it. It’s more a thought process to help choose what bike to ride, everyone is free to ride whatever they prefer.

As for 29″ wheels feeling “slow” that certainly hasn’t been my experience of them. Quite the contrary for me. I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of smaller wheels anymore, but at 6’1″ it’s an easy decision.

Enduro bikes now are huge compared to the 130. Mine is not exactly ‘out there’ but it’s still 170mm travel, sub 64 degree HA, 1300+ WB and a steep seat angle. After a bit of time on it, the SB feels tiny, twitchy & a little bit loose in comparison. A ride or two later and I’m back into the groove on it.

It’s all relative of course. After a few rides on my Neuron I find my Enduro feels a bit lazy and slow by comparison and these are both sub 1200 mm length bikes. I just don’t have any use for something “bigger”. I guess my riding hasn’t moved on enough over the last 5 years to warrant moving onto to these more “progressive” trail bikes, never mind the latest enduro rigs. Even an SB130 looks like a huge bike to me for tooling around southern uk trails.

I live in the south of England. The aforementioned shorter trail bike is my main ride (SB130). I trail ride on it (or XC, not bridleway level stuff), race enduros, even the odd regional DH race. It does everything well so far.

So you’re basically saying your SB130 is a mini enduro bike and anything remotely steeper or shorter is nasty to ride? I did seriously think about buying an SB130 but decided it was just too big for nearly everything I ride regularly. I can see why you would choose it for racing enduros and limited DH though. Looks like an interesting blend of relatively short travel and enduro geometry.

Just watch the clamp forces….

Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to say in a lot more words!

“Woburn is my local trail”

“has it already been over-stepped for 95% of the trails that we actually ride on”

It’s been overstepped for 95% of the trails that YOU actually ride on. I like Woburn but it’s quite short of rocks or altitude.

What’s nice about these new long and slack trail bikes is they go uphill well but can handle trail riding on anything from twisty singletrack to properly gnarly stuff. Yes, the new breed of longer slacker XC bikes will be quicker than these big trail bikes on flatter woodland singletrack but they’re not as much fun if you either have gnarly trails nearby or like to visit them and not need a second bigger travel bike.

I think that geometry has been gradually catching up with travel, so amateurs like me have a more confidence inspiring bike for the lower speeds we ride at and pros (and the numerous properly quick amateurs) have a bike with geometry better suited to high speeds.

Woburn is not the only place I ride. It’s just my local woods. I’m a pretty average rider with about 15 years experience of dedicated mtb riding. I’ll ride anything short of full-on DH with reasonable confidence and have always been at the rougher trail riding end of the spectrum vs dedicated XC or DH. Woburn is probably the tightest, most twisty singletrack I know, so it does suit more compact geometry very well and definitely doesn’t favour 800 mm bars! I’ve ridden most trails in mid-southern England and Wales over the last decade and never felt like I needed a bigger bike to tackle anything super gnarly (which would be DH territory anyway) or fast and flowy. FoD DH would be about my limit for trail riding and I’ve survived that on bikes with far steeper, shorter geometry than anything I’ve seen in the last half decade or more.

I can see how even more LLS bikes would make the most aggressive of trails a bit more accessible to the average rider, but I’m not convinced they are a great compromise for all-round uk trail riding. It seems more like an aspirational thing to me at this point, where you end up carrying around a load more bike than you really need, while trying to convince yourself it is more fun. My “old” 2015 Enduro is not exactly shy when it comes to taking on the rough stuff, but marketing that kind of geo today as XC/trail has got to be taking the piss surely?

For you, maybe. For me, not at all. Steep HA, horrible slack seat angle, short wheelbase is all I see. But then my large trail bike is 480 reach, 65 degree HA & 77 degree seat tube, and that conservative to my big bike.

I’ve seen outright XC bikes more progressive than that Marin.

But where are you riding with these beasts? What is actually driving you toward these longer slacked out bikes? Are there really no cons?

I suppose the more interesting question (to me) is just what will “Trail bikes” look like in ~2025? will it just be another half decade of tweaking the LLS formula? or will something else be creeping through the pipeline by then?

Exactly. I’m wondering where this is all going too and LLS must have a limit for any application.

Workstands are another potential concern with carbon frames (also applies to super thin walled alloy tubes to a lesser extent):-

https://info.silca.cc/hirobel-launch

They aren’t that thin. I can’t imagine how you would be able to apply enough force with a strap, and you’d have to be really working hard to crush it with a screw clamp. Who’d keep tightening that hard?

They are actually pretty easy to damage with clamps, especially large diameter downtubes which are pretty thin and weak when compressed. Trek felt the need to produce this carbon care page:-

https://www.trekchicago.com/how-to/carbon-bicycle-and-component-care-pg193.htm

which includes this quote: “Car racks that clamp to the frame tubes should not be used because of the enormous loads concentrated in a small area.”

Now you can certainly mitigate this inherent issue by using special clamp adaptors (like the one Thule make) which spread the clamping load over a much larger contact area. Clamping around the top of the seatpost is preferable too because it has the seat-tube to support the clamped tube.

You just have to be a little more careful than you would when clamping a metal tube. As far as clamping a carbon tube goes, it’s pretty much like clamping a plastic tube. Carbon is obviously much stronger than plastic, but only in the direction of the fibres, not perpendicular to them like a clamping force would be.

I’d put the LLSish geometry of my 2018 29ER Marin B17 trail bike up there with the best innovations in MTB like suspension, dropper post, Spd pedals etc

Just had a look at that bike. 67 deg HA, 73.4 deg STA, 456 reach 1181 wheelbase in Large. All quite sensible IMO, but would be considered pretty conservative/old fashioned for a “modern” trail bike. This is not really what I’m talking about here. It’s the bikes going way beyond this level of LLS that I think may be going too far. I agree with you that LLS bikes in general compared to what we had 10-15 years ago are a huge improvement all round. I certainly don’t want to go back to a near 70 deg head angle and super short wheelbase and reach.

Manufacturers – perhaps not Giant or Specialized so much, will push geometry to the limit. If they didn’t, I’d still be riding round on my 91Hardrock. Also, most of what we ride can be ridden on a steep XC rigid but where’s the fun in that? Unless that’s your bag, obvs. Woburn is a good example. Even the more tech stuff is fine on my hardtail but it’s not as comfy, fun and fast as my 160/165 FS. Actually, most climbs are better on the big bike too. Yes, I won’t ever ride “Empire” twisty tight tree festooned trail as fast as I did 6yrs ago when I had 680mm bars, but then for everything else my 780’s are brilliant.

It’s a good phase. Big bikes don’t kill you on the ups Or on bridleways and short travel can take-on steeps and drops without folding in half. My frustration is the cost of stuff; another thread required.

See Woburn is my local trail and for there I just feel like modern trail bikes (with 140+ travel) are now too much bike. My 2015 Spesh Enduro 29er is about the limit of what I would want to be hauling around trails like Woburn and even that is a bit of a chore on the tight twisty bits with 760 mm bars etc. My brand new 130 mm 29er actually has 770 mm bars and is a fraction longer, yet it’s marketed more at the XC end of the trail spectrum.

My only conclusion is that you have to seriously consider going for a shorter travel bike these days unless you really are riding far more aggressive trails than you previously did. I’m finding my 130/130 mm bike is as about as capable on the downs as my 4 year old 160/155 Enduro, but much faster uphill. I would have no hesitation taking this bike on FoD DH runs, so I just can’t imagine why I would ever need a bigger trail bike. If I was doing regular Alpine trips or EWS courses then it would make some sense if I could only have one bike.

I wasn’t really trying to cover really old school geometry in this thread, only the recent trend toward ever more extreme LLS geometry in mainstream, mid travel trail bikes. Where is the end point in this “progression” or has it already been over-stepped for 95% of the trails that we actually ride on? This was my concern when choosing a new “trail” bike. I certainly don’t want a 170 mm stretched out Enduro wagon and even a 150 mm so called “trail” bike is now just massive overkill (typically 800 wide bars, DH tyres, stretched wheelbase, big forks etc) unless you are riding somewhere properly gnarly every day. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice for the “average” trail rider these days. It’s great that longer travel bikes are getting more versatile, but it just seems like an arse-about sort of compromise.

Anwyay I was pleased to see Canyon bucking the trend slightly with their new Neuron CF in simply designing a bike more in line with what probably 95% of riders are really doing out there, rather than just chasing the LLS trend without really giving much thought to ordinary guys riding ordinary trails.

To quote myself (I was half joking earlier), this bike check referrs to a pro choosing the shorter frame to give more “playfull” response on enduro races.

Interesting comment. I’m not that surprised given how long some of these bikes are getting. I’m more than happy with a sub 1200 mm wheelbase on a size L trail bike. I’m also happy I didn’t get caught up in the “going large” trend with every component. I’ve kind of taken a step back from my previous bikes and really liking it. Faster rolling tyres, lighter forks, lighter wheels etc. It just feels like a better compromise for all the trails I would ride. Climbing in particular has been so much easier and faster on this bike. It is pretty low though (335 mm) and I can’t imagine going any lower with all the roots and stumps along my local trails. I’m definitely getting more pedal strikes on this bike, but it’s just about acceptable. To be honest I would prefer it 5 mm higher for a bit more safety. But the rest of the geometry seems perfect for blasting along typical red singletrack.

The seat tube is way steeper on the Jeffsy, so even though the reach is much longer, the effective top tube is very similar to your Scale. According to Geometry Geeks think the Medium Jeffsy is a little shorter and the large a bit longer than your Scale. Either would probably fit you. So depends if you want a much longer wheelbase or not

But every year all the other companys edge closer a little tiny bit at a time but proclaim it to be new and cutting edge geo…
Is the reality that they’re just stretching it out half a degree here and 10mm there to make sure they can have a new cutting edge model next year that’s still 2 degrees and 30mm out?

Probably more likely that their typical customers are more conservative and averse to sudden change. Plus not everyone actually wants a 63 deg head angle with a 550 mm reach!

Very strong and hard to break in some ways, very easy/weak in others.

That sums it up well. I worked in F1 racing for many years where everything was carbon. While incredibly strong, it can also be very weak if loaded in the wrong plane. Thin walled carbon tubes are particularly vulnerable to crush damage, which is why you have to be so careful when clamping carbon bars. Same applies to rack clamps on carbon downtubes. Even more so as they are much thinner walled and will have no reinforcement for clamping.

It’s definitely easier to crush a carbon frame tube if you don’t take some care. I always try to clamp mine around the top of the seat tube, where the inserted seat-post prevents the tube from compressing.

I also use invisiframe protection film to prevent stone chips, but that’s more cosmetic really. But I would make sure the downtube has a decent rock guard.

my newest bike is almost 10 years old

Personally I think mtbs have a come a long way in that time scale. I’m not saying your bike is obsolete and any less fun to ride than it was 10 years ago, but I reckon a new “equivalent” bike would be a fair bit better overall.

It might be frustrating that standards keep on changing and evolving every few years, but if you did freeze them in time (like they more or less were for a very long period in the 80s/90s) then it becomes ever more restrictive for designers to make genuine progress. For the most part, changes have been for the better (excepting press fit BBs of course!).

In another 10 years I’m sure the game will have moved on again, but bikes are starting to get pretty refined these days. I bought my first serious high end full suss mtb in 2004 and eventually replaced it in 2015 (after numerous upgrades along the way) with an equivalent kind of bike at the time, which was night and day better in every respect apart from the crappy press fit BB! I’ve just replaced that bike with a 2019 model, which is incrementally better again in almost every respect (even has a threaded BB!), but it’s not such a massive revelation compared to my 2015 bike. So I think we are probably seeing a flattening improvement curve as you might expect.

Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t want to restrict all future bike designs to the standards of today. As long as I can service my current bike for a minimum of 5 years then I’m happy to move on.

Threaded BB conversion

Isn’t that just a bodge to make a press fit frame more like a threaded BB, rather than a fundamental improvement?

Suspension fork surely?

How far back are we going here? How about derailleur gears or pneumatic tyres?

Dropper posts (possibly the biggest single improvement for me)
29″ wheels (26″ always felt ridiculously small for my 6’1″ height)
Large headset bearings (the original standard was woefully inadequate for 130+ travel forks)
Bolt through axles (original flimsy QR standard was crap)
1x drivetrains
Carbon frames (now they are properly designed)
Tubeless tyres
Wider tyres/rims
Wider bars
Longer, lower, slacker geometry (up to to a point)

Most things have improved really. People whining on the other thread should all be made to ride something from the early 2000s.

I can vouch for the top tube, don’t just rely on reach numbers.

Yeah, the reach looks generous at 474 mm for a large. But the STA is very steep, so it still ends up being a very short cockpit. The XL is a big step up from there with a long ST so they could do with an extra size between L and XL like some other manufacturers have started doing. Shame, because it was at the top of my shortlist for a new bike. If you have short arms or very long legs then it’s probably fine!

If it bothers you that much, put a long dropper post in a size or two down and use a reversed angleset for the headset. Or keep riding your old bike if there’s nothing wrong with it?

I found something suitable in the end with a bit less travel. One of the reasons for ditching my Enduro was the f****** press fit BB. Now it feels like a revelation to have a threaded BB again!

Press fit BB’s, with a special mention to BB30.

With you there. I would never buy another bike with this shite system.

The trend toward ever longer, slacker, lower geometry “trail” bikes is also getting out of hand. I wanted something with a decent amount of travel to replace my 2015 Enduro, but now it’s hard to find something that isn’t the length of a barge with the front wheel out of sight.

They are definitely short on the top tube, large is only 619 mm. XL is much longer at 649 and 500 reach (probably too long for me), but the seat-tube is 508 so I could only fit a 125 dropper for my 34″ legs. If you have super long legs then it’s probably a good option, but for me at 6’1″ with long arms the sizing doesn’t really work.

If I lived in Chamonix I would certainly buy an e-bike. Probably would if I was riding at BPW every day too. But as my local trails are Woburn and Cannock Chase I much prefer to pedal myself around that kind of undulating singletrack. If you take away the challenge of all the pedalling parts then there isn’t much left! My daughter has an e-bike though, which is great for allowing us to ride together. It acts like an handicap system.