I'm riding a 2017 Orange 324 with 200 mm rear travel set up as a AM/FR/EN/DH bike (or mountain bike);
it also has a 212mm Vecnum Nivo Dropper, 32:9-46t cassette on 150mm hub.
I have had it set up with 27.5 front and rear with a Fox 40, but it was a bit heavy for wheel lifts, and the front wheel felt small after having some mullet bike setups. So now i am running it happily with 180mm 29" fork and 29" front wheel.
The seat angle is about 74deg, and i can get my post low enough to buzz the rear tire on the seatback at bottom out, and high enough to pedal up steep roads; i find this to be a major crux for most bikes.
It pedaled ok with a 34t ring but suspnesion pedaling kinemnatics works better with 32t, and is more useful gear range.
I have a dhx 5.0 coil shock on it with propedal, which is a digressive LSC valve, the knob is easily in reach and lubed up so it spins easily on the fly near the top or bottom of the trail. i only use it when i have a ways to go, it doesnt pedal badly anyways, if i get a good cadence going it is quite smooth and negligable, it just isnt as peppy when mashed on as a dw link bike.
The bike weighs 36 lbs, i can climb, decent, huck almost anything. i regularly jump into rough landings and case, it is really nice to have that extra 50mm of travel compared to an "enduro" bike. with the right kinematics setup and form travel does not have a bearing on how a bike pedals, it has everything to do with dynamic springrate and kinematics.
Axle to crown length of forks is fairly fixed. Longer axle to crown forks have a clear disadvantage. By shortening headtube, headset, slimming the toptube and going to dual crown forks we can shorten the stack height without limiting fork travel, but we cannot keep making big wheel bikes with long travel singlecrown forks and keep reasonable stackheights. When it comes to rear travel there is not the same limitus on stack height, cause it doesnt really exist.. if you were to make a similar contraiint it would be seat/seattube interfereance with rear tire. bikes with short chainstays have problems in this regard, if you are willing to realize the benifits of longer chainstays or move the lower saddle position forward this can be worked around, problem is most bikes are just copying specialized enduro still so thinking outside the box is hard and scary apparently, and the industry and media lackeys dont encourage it.
This same argument is happening in reverse right now in the comments for the "Test Sessions: Five Slack, Short-Travel 29ers" review. Over there someone is complaining...
This same argument is happening in reverse right now in the comments for the "Test Sessions: Five Slack, Short-Travel 29ers" review. Over there someone is complaining that the test bikes are so heavy, so why even bother buying a short travel bike? "If it's going to weigh the same as an enduro bike anyway..." blah blah blah.
TRAVEL NUMBERS DICTATE MORE THAN JUST PEDALING EFFICIENCY AND BUMP ABSORPTION.
Even if a long-travel bike is light and feels "efficient" pedaling up a gravel fire road, it's going to ride like shit on a flattish pumpy trail. Long travel bikes are built to carry speed. Big travel absorbs forces and creates traction. Those qualities are great on a steep downhill track, but horrible on a flatter trail where you have to generate speed constantly. The squishy travel absorbs bumps, but it also absorbs your body inputs to generate speed.
One of the local trail spots in Portland is Sandy Ridge. There's a long, smooth asphalt climb to the top, followed by a bunch of IMBA spec trails cut into a rocky PNW hillside with litte patches of dirt on the way down. The descents are kinda rough and rocky, but they're really flat and, even worse, the geniuses who built the place covered every smooth section of trail with abrupt, speed-killing "pump" bumps. You know, for "flow." There are a million switchbacks, all of the berms are too tight, and you carry no speed out of them. I hate riding there, but I do all the time because... I'm an idiot.
To ride Sandy Ridge fast, you have to pump like crazy. It feels like I'm rowing a boat when I ride there. Even if my long travel bike pedals up the paved road "efficiently," it stills feels like I'm dying a long death riding down Sandy on my big bike because it bogs down on every pump bump and mutes every opportunity to build speed. The bike absorbs all my effort. By contrast, a short travel bike pumps up to speed quickly and helps me motor across all the flat bullshit. A bike like a Tallboy or an Optic would be perfect out there: meaty tires that won't flat, geometry that can go fast, but short travel that I can pump up to speed like a dual slalom bike.
This is the reason we happily "fork up" with 140 forks on 120mm bikes. Long travel rear ends significantly rob speed on mellow terrain, but longer travel forks don't. This is also the reason you see every enduro pro landing in the 150-160mm rear travel number and not riding 170-180mm bikes even when they're available. Apparently the pros have concluded that the trails in the EWS are mixed enough (steep mixed with flat, smooth mixed with rough) that the tradeoff for more travel is too great.
I usually am not one to "hate ride" a trail over and over. Im sure its a spirtual exercise on some level in order to make a person better but Im too shallow
@ jeff.brines
"It sounds like you really want "freeride" bikes to make a comeback, no?"
No, that's not it at all.
So my only point is...
@ jeff.brines
"It sounds like you really want "freeride" bikes to make a comeback, no?"
No, that's not it at all.
So my only point is that I want to be able to buy a single crown DH bike with the pedal clearance to pedal up technical singletrack, and I want to be able to run a dropper on it. I happen to think that Enduro bikes are not that.
In my comment, I pointed out that one particular freeride fork would actually change spring rates when it detected "hang time" before a hard landing and this allowed a larger range of dropping forces to be managed without compromising trail handling.
Recently I watched this video from Steve at Vorsprung. He was asked the question of the best rear shock on the market...and he called out the Fox DHX4. Which is a 10+ year old freeride shock no longer being made. That particular shock has a lot of cool tech inside it. High and low compression, rebound...plus 3 layers of bottom out protection/adjustment and progression/ramp tuning, so you could widen the range of forces it could manage.
If you think all the bike suspension tech has gotten better and better in the last ten years, how do you explain his comment? What do you think he was really talking about? Like, shocks today have climb switches and compression dials. So what was his point? He wasn't talking about features, obviously. What quality was he really talking about?
10 years ago, I could buy a dual air fork and change the actual progression (range of forces) with an air pump. (This could be done independent of sag, spring rate or initial bump feel! It was determined by the end-user.)
Imagine a different analogy here. Suppose we were talking about handlebars instead. Lets say that every part of my bike would take a 10 foot drop to flat, except for the handlebar. Every time the bars bend. Would you agree that this is a problem with the engineering for someone, somewhere? If that was the situation with handlebars, would it make sense to make any of the other bike parts even more burly? The bars are setting the limit, right?
If you geek out on suspension a little, the media constantly talks about air shocks having "small bump feel, mid-stroke support, bottom out resistance". These are mutually exclusive on air shocks. You'd get brain damage from reading a lot of the reviews. Some of the manufacturers started running negative progression linkages as a "hack" on these shocks. Riders have been slapping coils on these air-shock specific linkages. The system is SEVERELY broken when everyone is hacking every other thing to try to make stuff work.
I'm curious. Have you ever taken a DH or Freeride bike down a double-black DH tech trail? Do you think the suspension is an important component in the overall package?
Your comment about BMX bikes is interesting. The trailhead for my local DH trails is 2 doors over from my buddy's place. He's a former nat'l level BMX pro rider. Used to have a tricked out van and go around the country doing comps and demos. Towed a big set of ramps on a trailer (until he hit a McD's drive through with it). Anyhow, for a point of reference, he cannot ride ANY of the natural tech in the trails here. He jumps manicured dirt jumps like a demon, but he cannot take natural cliffs or drops at all, which is what we have on every trail over here.
Wow. Where to begin.
First, Steve is a smart dude, but he's not the end all be all of suspension commentary. He also thought the Monarch was as good as a Super Deluxe. My personal opinion and on trail experience riding both of these shocks back to back does not in anyway suggest this to be true.
Second, in a lot of ways suspension has stayed the same. Its just oil going through various holes and shims after all. That said, I'm 100% positive my 2019-2020 stuff is worlds better than anything of yesteryear. Want proof? The Totem hasn't gone up in price. The Fox shock you are speaking of isn't super sought after. Hell, you can barely give them away.
Third, your first sentence literally described an old school freeride bike. "high bb, long travel single crown, be able to pedal to the top". What am I missing?
The market moved away from this because most riders find they are able to absolutely crush technical single track (or any kind of trail) on a 170-150mm bike at least as good as a bike with more travel that is heavier. They also climb better being they are often less portly. Some people may fall outside this generalization (like the poster, who instead of complaining on the internet went and built his dream machine - PROPS!).
I get passionate in debates like this because I *firmly* believe its a great time to be a bike rider. Even complete bikes that are $3K work really damn well. Far better than the best bike 10 years ago did. There isn't some kind of mass conspiracy here to keep you riding shitty parts.
You are looking for technology to do something most people aren't. You are citing a fork's huck-to-flat performance as somehow an indicator of a suspension product not doing what you want it to do. I'm not God's Gift to mountain biking but I still race at a pro level regionally. I'm not sure I've ridden "double diamond trails on a freeride bike" but I have ridden WC courses on a DH bike. I'm also bigger and like to smash. I don't find my suspension to be excessively bottoming out. In fact, I often run my suspension as linear as I can!
Again, I sincerely think you are barking up the wrong tree, or a tree nobody else is barking up.
As far as the BMX comment, I was talking more about the urban guys. Or go look at the trials guys. I promise they are hucking more to flat with zero suspension than anyone here is with alllllllllllllllll the travel.
"I usually am not one to 'hate ride' a trail over and over. Im sure its a spirtual exercise on some level in order to make a person better but Im too shallow."
I highly recommend it. If you ignore the hate it never goes away, it just festers in a small corner somewhere deep down inside. I also recommend hate riding bikes that suck, are too heavy, etc. You travel through the hate, and on the other side you're more appreciative. For instance, I actually appreciate riding Sandy Ridge now.
"I usually am not one to 'hate ride' a trail over and over. Im sure its a spirtual exercise on some level in order to make...
"I usually am not one to 'hate ride' a trail over and over. Im sure its a spirtual exercise on some level in order to make a person better but Im too shallow."
I highly recommend it. If you ignore the hate it never goes away, it just festers in a small corner somewhere deep down inside. I also recommend hate riding bikes that suck, are too heavy, etc. You travel through the hate, and on the other side you're more appreciative. For instance, I actually appreciate riding Sandy Ridge now.
See? Spiritual Gangster stuff.
I had to craft my words lightly,as Ive got a bit of a migraine going and not really up to the task of going toe to toe with you today
How you been, Chuck? Bet its nice to be back in the mtns...even if they pumpy-flow-imba-suck...in the cold rain
> I get passionate in debates like this because I *firmly* believe its a great time to be a bike rider
Dude. This sport is dead. Remember when MTB was on all the major TV networks? There were 30 million riders. All kinds of A-list non-cycling companies sponsored teams. Hundreds and hundreds of people made a living riding mountain bikes through pro contracts? All that is gone. Even the participation numbers have hollowed out by half in fifteen years. All the money drained out of the sport. Can you name 10 XC racers, or list the locations of the world cup races? Laughable.
Like, this is my sport and a major part of my life, but it's been fully, utterly destroyed by almost any objective measure.
By the numbers, the amount of bike-shop level mountain bikes sold per year is now about equal to the number of bikes stolen per year. About 80% of the shops died and went out of business.
If you look at a shredit video, I'd bet you can't even tell if it was made this year or 5 years ago. There's no progression evident at all any more. I can't stomach to watch a guy drink coffee for 30 seconds and then ride his bike at 120% playback speed for 30 seconds while being completely unoriginal.
Today a friend of mine asked me about "mullet bikes". We mulled it over a little and he said, basically, that there is so little technical innovation that people are actually "bored" of the tech not actually moving at all. I think that's true. The show must go on even if there's no show.
I remember doing national level races in the US with 2500 racers in just a single category. I was in a race with over 6000 participants. That was at the peak. Have you been exposed to any other organized sports? Ice hockey and women's gymnastics make those numbers look ridiculously, pitifully small, and their organizations make mountain biking organizations look like total amateur hour. A mountain bike organization can barely afford staff or programming. Like...hockey pays for all that PLUS amazingly expensive infrastructure, property, maintenance, zambonis and on and on. Plus it has a pro league, stadiums, fans, ticket sales, merch, TV and on and on. Like...MTB is not a "great" sport, and this particular time in MTB is lame as hell.
I strongly advise you to go on "roots and rain" and scroll through the race results. A lot of the races have ~150 riders in all categories put together. The largest races in the whole world last year never topped 1000 participants. None that I can see went over 900 riders.
Back in the day, I used to run into 200 riders just out riding on the trails on a Wednesday night. By comparison now, I can ride multiple rides without seeing any riders at all. There are some benefits to being a rider today, that's for sure. No crowds. But I'd hardly call it the "great time" for mountain biking. I build trails, belong to several clubs, teach riding at the local high schools and live and breathe this sport. But it has major problems. Among them is that it was killed off by a lot of people who absolutely refused to think about it objectively. Remember windsurfing? How about inline skating? Yep. Outside of the enthusiast echo chamber, mountain biking is dead. Windsurfers are on their own forum laughing about mountain bikes right now: "That's the sport that total nerds debate suspension numbers, right?"
Skiing and snowboarding have this thing where they have done very exhaustive surveys of participants longer than any other outdoor action sport. Over time, the participation numbers have declined year over year. But the days-per-year of the surviving participants has gone up and up. Basically, snowboarders used to number in the millions, and they would typically ride 10 days a year say. Now there are very very few riders, but they all ride 100 days. This is an extremely well studied phenomenon.
If you think hard about that, it's an illustration of what happens now in MTB as well. People who ride are REALLY excited and committed to riding, but there really aren't many of them any more, and all the serious opportunities to grow the sport appear to have left a long time ago. A bunch of "true fans" saying that the sport is great isn't the same as a great sport with mass appeal.
If I remember correctly, that famous marketing survey for the province of BC touted the commercial potential of mountain biking tourism for the province. It's significant compared to what you or I earn at a job, but I think I'm not too far wrong if I state that mountain biking tourism in a whole year earns the whole province about the same as a single Nascar race weekend. It's basically nothing in the great scheme of it all.
Seriously, what you just said is ridiculous rubbish. Wake up. Mountain biking is on life support.
No...I know what you really are saying. Bikes used to be tricky to ride. They were maneuverable. Bikes today have prioritized stability over all other qualities. Even a complete newbie can avoid rocketing OTB when they crank on the brake lever, now.
Then you look at the pros. Alloy rims. 26" wheels on their bikes. Tiny undersized frames. Nothing like what normal riders ride. My buddy is a former national champion and he keeps saying that the best time for bikes was 5-10 years ago.
Q: how do you sell a rank beginner a set of golf clubs
A: stick a "pro" sticker on the beginner model
> Second, in a lot of ways suspension has stayed the same. Its just oil going through various holes and shims after all.
Look. Go back and actually slow down and read the whole engineering paper I originally posted. None (zero) of that spring rate tech involved oil passing through shim stacks. You seem to have completely failed to process the information that's actually covered in the paper.
> Third, your first sentence literally described an old school freeride bike. "high bb, long travel single crown, be able to pedal to the top". What am I missing?
Geometry, flex, componentry. You are reading what you think I'm saying, but you actually aren't listening. You're arguing right past my actual point. Have you actually seen a freeride bike? Ever owned one or ridden one?
> The market moved away from this because most riders find they are able to absolutely crush technical single track (or any kind of trail) on a 170-150mm bike at least as good as a bike with more travel that is heavier.
My perception is that this is all just perception. Like, here you are arguing that "you can absolutely" whatever, but you actually don't know. You haven't tested your assumption:
" I'm not sure I've ridden "double diamond trails on a freeride bike"
There's the heart of the issue. You're debating the figment of your imagination's idea of "freeride". Before you spout any more thoughts about this abstract idea you have, I'll remind you that there's a real world that actually doesn't care about how the logical shortcuts in your mind work. You would benefit by actually knowing what freeride bikes ride like. As a starting exercise, try actually timing some A/B runs on a trail you know. Or ride with riders you know well. See what you find out.
Like...you ride pro class regional DH right? So you ride an Enduro bike for those competitions, I assume? It's "absolutely" able to crush because it's lighter, correct?
Just to blow up the superficiality of what you're saying you understand about bikes...let's say that there's a 40mm single crown fork that is 100% identical to another 36mm single crown fork. Same damper, same tech, same wheel axle, same everything except the chassis. Weight is the same, paint job is the same. So which is better for tech trails? Do you need stiffness or compliance? What does your "theory" tell you? I'm going to hazard a guess that even if you're right about your 50% odds-of-being-right guess, the actual acid test will be from what you learn actually riding your bike. You don't actually know, because you have no way to know without doing what I'm saying you should do.
> Again, I sincerely think you are barking up the wrong tree, or a tree nobody else is barking up.
I know you do.
Back when things like freeride, 4-cross, slopestyle, trials, dual slalom, urban assault, uphill racing, singlespeed, fixie, supercross and other fringe disciplines existed, these were always, always marginal pursuits. But all kinds of bike companies produced bikes and spec'ed them and sold them to slim markets, making money and making all kinds of riding possible. Even for the fringes. There's nothing that has changed about the economics of that. What once worked could work today, but only if the investments around carbon molds didn't have to be amortized over many thousands of units.
Specialized, just for one example, used to produce 800 models of bikes a few years ago. I just checked now, and they have 375 models this year, that's even INCLUDING e-bikes.
Rock Shox used to have about 30 fork families. They now have about 15.
If you don't understand what's been lost so far, I'm not sure what you're doing here in this particular conversation about what's holding back the industry from producing "200mm+ Enduro Bikes". If you simply don't know why someone would want one of those or what you would do with them or what would be required to make this product actually workable...so what are you doing here, actually?
My main point is that the 200mm Enduro bike has been damned by the forces that have whittled down all the selection and range we used to have.
For example, when Santa Cruz came out with the Nomad Gen 3 around 2014, it came with a 165mm back end and a 150mm front end. It was a complete disaster of a bike because it was impossible to spec due to the lack of fork options. I'm only just pointing out that the 200+mm bike has this same issue, only worse. A 200+mm fork based on a 36mm chassis is going to have the same bushing grab issues that the 150mm pike had on that Nomad. We've been down this road at least twice before in mountain bike history. It's a doomed idea.
Everything you've written has left me completely unconvinced that we don't need the products in the long-travel pedal category. My trails have up to 10 foot drops on them. I have to pedal 5000' vertical to reach the drop ins. If you don't know what "excessively bottoming out" is like, you don't feel my pain. I am running custom oil, custom shims, higher pressures, lower sag, tire inserts and I still have issues.
Not so long ago, we made bikes for the trails we had. Now, we are forced to make (flow) trails that are dumbed down enough for the bikes that the industry wants to sell us. A lot of riders are thrilled about all the "trail development" and it's the "greatest time to be a mountain biker". And then you travel the country and see that every town has the exact same trail and you forget to flick your lockout lever and it doesn't even matter.
A couple of days ago I bought some bike parts off a local enduro racer. Before I got to leave with my parts in hand I had to listen to an angry rant about how bad the bikes are this year and how disappointing the lack of real selection is. This all happened since we started this conversation. It's not just a "me" problem.
I think your answering exactly why there arn't more long travel/freeride/enduro whatever you call it bikes. The largest group of people in our sport who are spending money on bikes is the new rider or intermediate class rider. People who only have been in the sport for under five years.
Same reason why the most ridden trail at Whistler is Crank it up. The average rider is barely able to clear a 10 foot perfectly constructed table. They arn't interested in tech of ANY difficulty level.
So I think a lot of tech has gone that way. Making bikes more fun for the masses and less for the small section of people who are freeriding. I think this is why you see most people who are riding rowdy stuff on DH bikes these days.
Correct me if I'm wrong about this, but...is there any fork left on the market that's a single-crown ~200mm travel fork?
Just a few years ago...
Correct me if I'm wrong about this, but...is there any fork left on the market that's a single-crown ~200mm travel fork?
Just a few years ago, there was a whole class of single-crown, longer travel forks built on a bigger chassis...for instance, the Rock Shox Totem. There was a whole class of longer-travel bikes all under in the Freeride paradigm. That has all gone away.
I think the deeper cause of the disappearance of the market segment was the move to primarily-carbon bike frames. The "modern" geo is basically nothing except a hack that takes an XC-bike back end bolted onto a DH-bike front end geo. The industry was telling everyone to get "one bike", and that one bike could now be a super expensive $10K carbon "do-it-all" machine that would appeal to virtually any bike consumer for any usage at all. The value proposition of the "quiver bike" seemed to click in a lot of riders' minds. And a lot of people around me have been sucked into a constant stream of buying and replacing carbon bikes in search of something elusive that doesn't seem to be delivered in that concept.
(I think there are a lot of very real compromises in what's being sold right now...IMO the pendulum has swung so far towards one extreme that the geometry of bikes is less of a limiting factor than the suspension and overall "built" strength of components. Bikes are too wimpy for their handling characteristics now.)
Bike companies used to make a whole range of products, now they have really small line-ups. A few manufacturers use the exact same super expensive carbon mold to make a whole line of bikes, simply swapping the metric shock for long- and short- shocks to differentiate the products. (Noooo...there's no compromise there.)
If you really, really think about the 35/36mm-stanchion forks that are on the market today, if you set them up with the recommended sag, you will bottom these out with 4X the rider weight applied. They have a pitifully small range of bump handling. If you go to 20% or 15% sag, and you go a couple extra tokens past what the "max" is, you can get them to take ~5X the rider weight at bottom out.
Here's an engineering paper about the 40mm single-crown RS Totem. Among many other details, it DOESN'T hit the bottom out on 5' drops to flat, which is remarkable given my not very similar experience on trail-build forks in recent years: https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/19346182.2008.9648466
For a point of reference, the weight on the fork at a 1.5m drop to flat is 5X the rider weight. That's the upper limit of the spring rate for 35mm air chambers, see above. (The old forks actually could handle much larger forces!)
This isn't just damper or air volume stuff, it's the whole design of the freeride fork product category. The fork in question cleverly uses the "hang time" to preload the lower air spring for big hits. The other engineering going on in the product is also pretty insightful...I'm not sure if there's really anything on the market "like this" right now.
Over in the real world, I'm currently rebuilding a trail that is an old Freeride/stunt trail. It was made out of some super nice cedar, back in the day. There's nothing really wrong with any of the structures, but the trail was so abandoned that I've been largely just removing deadfall...at least 50-100 trees have been lying across the trail. 10 years of neglected maintenance. Talking to people in my local community, the general consensus is that people are truly interested in riding this trail and reworking / dumbing down some of the stunts, but the view on this trail was rather surprising as I started to investigate it more. The big take-away from these conversations is that the main reason this trail got abandoned is because "the bikes couldn't take it any more". Person by person the idea has kept coming out saying that the "do-it-all" bikes simply can't REALLY handle the trail.
That has had me re-evaluating my thoughts on bikes/equipment quite a bit.
A couple of years ago when I was "in between trail bikes" I took an old Freeride bike up to Whistler and Squamish. Simply added a dropper post and took it on the trails. It was amazing how easy/manageable a lot of the hard lines became under the super stout bike with really DH-level suspension. It sucked pedaling a 40# bike around, but pointed down it made my buddies feel too slow and cautious to have fun to ride with...
Then I got my "new" trail bike and I found the trails became a lot harder again on my next trip. My suspension was clanging off the bumps stops and the brakes felt worked, etc. I am starting to feel like we're all "underbiked".
If you're doubting any of what I'm saying, go look at some YouTube videos of Enduro riders hitting tech. Not talking flow trails. Look for gnar. Watch in slo-mo, frame by frame and look at suspension travel. Fairly mild bumps will have the heavily tuned pro riders' bike near bottom-out. The suspension gear is just so wimpy.
So yeah. Someone would be able to build a longer-travel Enduro rig frame, but it'll suck when you build it up with what's available for components.
Suspension set for "drops" isn't the same as suspension set for speed or racing. Horses for courses. Even back in the free ride era, pro DH riders didn't run the same suspension as free ride guys did. In addition, free ride bikes were tanks and shit still broke. Bikes today are light years ahead of the bikes from the free ride era and I lived thru it. Nothing prevents you from getting a small sized aluminum frame (medium or more back then) and setting all the suspension up to handle what you want
I’ve done some 10 ft drops on my previous gen Hightower. Obviously gotta have a pretty choice area to land and I usually bottom out but I wouldn’t want to do that on ‘13 fuel ex. Modern suspension may not be the most tuneable (at least by mortals) but it’s light years ahead in reliability especially without ultra frequent servicing. Only area I see needing more development is tires and wheels. This is where I have majority of my issues in races or ride ending breakdowns.
@ jeff.brines
> I get passionate in debates like this because I *firmly* believe its a great time to be a bike rider
Dude. This sport...
@ jeff.brines
> I get passionate in debates like this because I *firmly* believe its a great time to be a bike rider
Dude. This sport is dead. Remember when MTB was on all the major TV networks? There were 30 million riders. All kinds of A-list non-cycling companies sponsored teams. Hundreds and hundreds of people made a living riding mountain bikes through pro contracts? All that is gone. Even the participation numbers have hollowed out by half in fifteen years. All the money drained out of the sport. Can you name 10 XC racers, or list the locations of the world cup races? Laughable.
Like, this is my sport and a major part of my life, but it's been fully, utterly destroyed by almost any objective measure.
By the numbers, the amount of bike-shop level mountain bikes sold per year is now about equal to the number of bikes stolen per year. About 80% of the shops died and went out of business.
If you look at a shredit video, I'd bet you can't even tell if it was made this year or 5 years ago. There's no progression evident at all any more. I can't stomach to watch a guy drink coffee for 30 seconds and then ride his bike at 120% playback speed for 30 seconds while being completely unoriginal.
Today a friend of mine asked me about "mullet bikes". We mulled it over a little and he said, basically, that there is so little technical innovation that people are actually "bored" of the tech not actually moving at all. I think that's true. The show must go on even if there's no show.
I remember doing national level races in the US with 2500 racers in just a single category. I was in a race with over 6000 participants. That was at the peak. Have you been exposed to any other organized sports? Ice hockey and women's gymnastics make those numbers look ridiculously, pitifully small, and their organizations make mountain biking organizations look like total amateur hour. A mountain bike organization can barely afford staff or programming. Like...hockey pays for all that PLUS amazingly expensive infrastructure, property, maintenance, zambonis and on and on. Plus it has a pro league, stadiums, fans, ticket sales, merch, TV and on and on. Like...MTB is not a "great" sport, and this particular time in MTB is lame as hell.
I strongly advise you to go on "roots and rain" and scroll through the race results. A lot of the races have ~150 riders in all categories put together. The largest races in the whole world last year never topped 1000 participants. None that I can see went over 900 riders.
Back in the day, I used to run into 200 riders just out riding on the trails on a Wednesday night. By comparison now, I can ride multiple rides without seeing any riders at all. There are some benefits to being a rider today, that's for sure. No crowds. But I'd hardly call it the "great time" for mountain biking. I build trails, belong to several clubs, teach riding at the local high schools and live and breathe this sport. But it has major problems. Among them is that it was killed off by a lot of people who absolutely refused to think about it objectively. Remember windsurfing? How about inline skating? Yep. Outside of the enthusiast echo chamber, mountain biking is dead. Windsurfers are on their own forum laughing about mountain bikes right now: "That's the sport that total nerds debate suspension numbers, right?"
Skiing and snowboarding have this thing where they have done very exhaustive surveys of participants longer than any other outdoor action sport. Over time, the participation numbers have declined year over year. But the days-per-year of the surviving participants has gone up and up. Basically, snowboarders used to number in the millions, and they would typically ride 10 days a year say. Now there are very very few riders, but they all ride 100 days. This is an extremely well studied phenomenon.
If you think hard about that, it's an illustration of what happens now in MTB as well. People who ride are REALLY excited and committed to riding, but there really aren't many of them any more, and all the serious opportunities to grow the sport appear to have left a long time ago. A bunch of "true fans" saying that the sport is great isn't the same as a great sport with mass appeal.
If I remember correctly, that famous marketing survey for the province of BC touted the commercial potential of mountain biking tourism for the province. It's significant compared to what you or I earn at a job, but I think I'm not too far wrong if I state that mountain biking tourism in a whole year earns the whole province about the same as a single Nascar race weekend. It's basically nothing in the great scheme of it all.
Seriously, what you just said is ridiculous rubbish. Wake up. Mountain biking is on life support.
No...I know what you really are saying. Bikes used to be tricky to ride. They were maneuverable. Bikes today have prioritized stability over all other qualities. Even a complete newbie can avoid rocketing OTB when they crank on the brake lever, now.
Then you look at the pros. Alloy rims. 26" wheels on their bikes. Tiny undersized frames. Nothing like what normal riders ride. My buddy is a former national champion and he keeps saying that the best time for bikes was 5-10 years ago.
Q: how do you sell a rank beginner a set of golf clubs
A: stick a "pro" sticker on the beginner model
> Second, in a lot of ways suspension has stayed the same. Its just oil going through various holes and shims after all.
Look. Go back and actually slow down and read the whole engineering paper I originally posted. None (zero) of that spring rate tech involved oil passing through shim stacks. You seem to have completely failed to process the information that's actually covered in the paper.
> Third, your first sentence literally described an old school freeride bike. "high bb, long travel single crown, be able to pedal to the top". What am I missing?
Geometry, flex, componentry. You are reading what you think I'm saying, but you actually aren't listening. You're arguing right past my actual point. Have you actually seen a freeride bike? Ever owned one or ridden one?
> The market moved away from this because most riders find they are able to absolutely crush technical single track (or any kind of trail) on a 170-150mm bike at least as good as a bike with more travel that is heavier.
My perception is that this is all just perception. Like, here you are arguing that "you can absolutely" whatever, but you actually don't know. You haven't tested your assumption:
" I'm not sure I've ridden "double diamond trails on a freeride bike"
There's the heart of the issue. You're debating the figment of your imagination's idea of "freeride". Before you spout any more thoughts about this abstract idea you have, I'll remind you that there's a real world that actually doesn't care about how the logical shortcuts in your mind work. You would benefit by actually knowing what freeride bikes ride like. As a starting exercise, try actually timing some A/B runs on a trail you know. Or ride with riders you know well. See what you find out.
Like...you ride pro class regional DH right? So you ride an Enduro bike for those competitions, I assume? It's "absolutely" able to crush because it's lighter, correct?
Just to blow up the superficiality of what you're saying you understand about bikes...let's say that there's a 40mm single crown fork that is 100% identical to another 36mm single crown fork. Same damper, same tech, same wheel axle, same everything except the chassis. Weight is the same, paint job is the same. So which is better for tech trails? Do you need stiffness or compliance? What does your "theory" tell you? I'm going to hazard a guess that even if you're right about your 50% odds-of-being-right guess, the actual acid test will be from what you learn actually riding your bike. You don't actually know, because you have no way to know without doing what I'm saying you should do.
> Again, I sincerely think you are barking up the wrong tree, or a tree nobody else is barking up.
I know you do.
Back when things like freeride, 4-cross, slopestyle, trials, dual slalom, urban assault, uphill racing, singlespeed, fixie, supercross and other fringe disciplines existed, these were always, always marginal pursuits. But all kinds of bike companies produced bikes and spec'ed them and sold them to slim markets, making money and making all kinds of riding possible. Even for the fringes. There's nothing that has changed about the economics of that. What once worked could work today, but only if the investments around carbon molds didn't have to be amortized over many thousands of units.
Specialized, just for one example, used to produce 800 models of bikes a few years ago. I just checked now, and they have 375 models this year, that's even INCLUDING e-bikes.
Rock Shox used to have about 30 fork families. They now have about 15.
If you don't understand what's been lost so far, I'm not sure what you're doing here in this particular conversation about what's holding back the industry from producing "200mm+ Enduro Bikes". If you simply don't know why someone would want one of those or what you would do with them or what would be required to make this product actually workable...so what are you doing here, actually?
My main point is that the 200mm Enduro bike has been damned by the forces that have whittled down all the selection and range we used to have.
For example, when Santa Cruz came out with the Nomad Gen 3 around 2014, it came with a 165mm back end and a 150mm front end. It was a complete disaster of a bike because it was impossible to spec due to the lack of fork options. I'm only just pointing out that the 200+mm bike has this same issue, only worse. A 200+mm fork based on a 36mm chassis is going to have the same bushing grab issues that the 150mm pike had on that Nomad. We've been down this road at least twice before in mountain bike history. It's a doomed idea.
Everything you've written has left me completely unconvinced that we don't need the products in the long-travel pedal category. My trails have up to 10 foot drops on them. I have to pedal 5000' vertical to reach the drop ins. If you don't know what "excessively bottoming out" is like, you don't feel my pain. I am running custom oil, custom shims, higher pressures, lower sag, tire inserts and I still have issues.
Not so long ago, we made bikes for the trails we had. Now, we are forced to make (flow) trails that are dumbed down enough for the bikes that the industry wants to sell us. A lot of riders are thrilled about all the "trail development" and it's the "greatest time to be a mountain biker". And then you travel the country and see that every town has the exact same trail and you forget to flick your lockout lever and it doesn't even matter.
A couple of days ago I bought some bike parts off a local enduro racer. Before I got to leave with my parts in hand I had to listen to an angry rant about how bad the bikes are this year and how disappointing the lack of real selection is. This all happened since we started this conversation. It's not just a "me" problem.
You aren't climbing 5000' in Deming. You are basically claiming that you ride from Deming to the summit of Mt Baker, or you know pretty damn close to the summit, still ridiculous.
If I'm wrong, I would appreciate you showing me this trail, I will substantiate the rest of your post if this is the case.
I could spend the better part of the hour showing everyone who reads your conspiracy theorist victim based rant fest how ill founded your facts are. You really ought to start a tin foil hat thread somewhere else lol.
You aren't a victim of an industry that is somehow forcing you into riding worse product with less choices. That's not how markets work. I'm guessing economics have never been a strong suit for you.
While there will always be room for improvement, or some sort of pivot in any space, the idea that "the industry" somehow gathers behind closed doors and decides what to ram down our throats is hilarious at best.
I'm very confident when I say "its a hell of a time to be a bike rider; you get so much performance for so little money its amazing".
I'm even willing to put my money where my mouth is. I'd happily take a $3K Nukeproof and ride it in any enduro race in the world. The kicker? I know I wouldn't be able to blame my bike if (when) my results suck. The bike industry is realizing the Pareto principle on steroids.
Have you owned something like the CanyoneTorque? Santa Cruz Nomad? Specialized Enduro (new one)? Any of the 170-180mm "super enduro" bikes? You still think you need more travel?
Are you secretly Josh Bender sans 15 years?
The poster asked a question. "Why don't we have 200mm enduro bikes". The answer, clearly, is they don't work as well for enduro purpose as the bikes we have. Racing is really good at vetting ideas and seeing what works. Sometimes the wheels of R&D turn too slowly, sometimes ideas are just plain bad and sometimes they are just too niche. I'd say this one is just too niche.
If you want to ride a 200mm "enduro" bike, go for it. For a certain type of rider, it makes total sense! But it won't be faster, and it won't be all that more capable. It might be more comfortable however, and it might be a pile of fun! The best part is there really isn't anything in the way of you doing this. There are frames that you could buy that'd totally work!
That isn't the bike industry oppressing you. Its just how the industry has evolved to better serve a market (of more riders, riding more trails...)
Canfield just released the one.2. They're marketing it as a pedalable downhill bike. Seat angle looks great for seated pedaling hopefully not too much kickback on a wide range cassette.
[url=https://canfieldbikes.com/collections/2020-one-2]Canfield one.2[/url]
Canfield just released the one.2. They're marketing it as a pedalable downhill bike. Seat angle looks great for seated pedaling hopefully not too much...
Canfield just released the one.2. They're marketing it as a pedalable downhill bike. Seat angle looks great for seated pedaling hopefully not too much kickback on a wide range cassette.
It looks rad too. You beat em to the punch eh _Lan. (again, nice work on putting your money where your mouth is!)
It looks rad too. You beat em to the punch eh _Lan. (again, nice work on putting your money where your mouth is!)
Thanks, it was a small financial risk and it turned out well in the end. Got the bike I've always wanted based on my current understanding of suspension kinematics and experience with bike geometry.
Climbed with the bike again today to get to the trail head and it felt great. Didn't Bob at all when seated.
I predict we'll be seeing more bikes like the Canfield one.2 this year. A 29er Jedi would be awesome and not too disimilar to my bike.
Intense Uzzi last generation before discontinuation.. I think that bike it's closer to the DH cat than to Enduro.. Offset bushing dual crown, long shock, dropper, voila.. Same for delirium... Pedal damn it
1st of all, that bike you made is sick. 2nd, the only reason I see for people to not make 200mm enduro bikes is because they don't need to. 170-180mm gets the job done for what they're meant for. It's the same reason we don't see 230mm downhill bikes in main production, it's just not necessary.
[img]https://p.vitalmtb.com/photos/forums/2020/02/24/9250/s1200_IMG_20200221_113657_1.jpg[/img]
So I designed this thing, a 205-220mm travel (currently at 215mm) Downhill bike. I've been riding it almost everyday since I was able to tune...
So I designed this thing, a 205-220mm travel (currently at 215mm) Downhill bike. I've been riding it almost everyday since I was able to tune the suspension to my liking (ditched the harsh EXT for an X2). It performs very nicely as a downhill bike going down yet still climbs like any other efficient enduro bike can.
Sure, enduro bikes have become more capable and are creeping up to downhill travel numbers but why don't bike companies just go all the way. They keep teasing us with slight increments every year.
There must be a market for such bikes, I'm enjoying mine so much.
200mm travel "enduro"/trail bikes would be a great thing for rougher terrain.
Nicolai allow you to customize their G1 to have more travel if you want it.
Paul Aston has big wheeled 200mm G1 and loves it!
@ jeff.brines
"It sounds like you really want "freeride" bikes to make a comeback, no?"
No, that's not it at all.
So my only point is...
@ jeff.brines
"It sounds like you really want "freeride" bikes to make a comeback, no?"
No, that's not it at all.
So my only point is that I want to be able to buy a single crown DH bike with the pedal clearance to pedal up technical singletrack, and I want to be able to run a dropper on it. I happen to think that Enduro bikes are not that.
In my comment, I pointed out that one particular freeride fork would actually change spring rates when it detected "hang time" before a hard landing and this allowed a larger range of dropping forces to be managed without compromising trail handling.
Recently I watched this video from Steve at Vorsprung. He was asked the question of the best rear shock on the market...and he called out the Fox DHX4. Which is a 10+ year old freeride shock no longer being made. That particular shock has a lot of cool tech inside it. High and low compression, rebound...plus 3 layers of bottom out protection/adjustment and progression/ramp tuning, so you could widen the range of forces it could manage.
If you think all the bike suspension tech has gotten better and better in the last ten years, how do you explain his comment? What do you think he was really talking about? Like, shocks today have climb switches and compression dials. So what was his point? He wasn't talking about features, obviously. What quality was he really talking about?
10 years ago, I could buy a dual air fork and change the actual progression (range of forces) with an air pump. (This could be done independent of sag, spring rate or initial bump feel! It was determined by the end-user.)
Imagine a different analogy here. Suppose we were talking about handlebars instead. Lets say that every part of my bike would take a 10 foot drop to flat, except for the handlebar. Every time the bars bend. Would you agree that this is a problem with the engineering for someone, somewhere? If that was the situation with handlebars, would it make sense to make any of the other bike parts even more burly? The bars are setting the limit, right?
If you geek out on suspension a little, the media constantly talks about air shocks having "small bump feel, mid-stroke support, bottom out resistance". These are mutually exclusive on air shocks. You'd get brain damage from reading a lot of the reviews. Some of the manufacturers started running negative progression linkages as a "hack" on these shocks. Riders have been slapping coils on these air-shock specific linkages. The system is SEVERELY broken when everyone is hacking every other thing to try to make stuff work.
I'm curious. Have you ever taken a DH or Freeride bike down a double-black DH tech trail? Do you think the suspension is an important component in the overall package?
Your comment about BMX bikes is interesting. The trailhead for my local DH trails is 2 doors over from my buddy's place. He's a former nat'l level BMX pro rider. Used to have a tricked out van and go around the country doing comps and demos. Towed a big set of ramps on a trailer (until he hit a McD's drive through with it). Anyhow, for a point of reference, he cannot ride ANY of the natural tech in the trails here. He jumps manicured dirt jumps like a demon, but he cannot take natural cliffs or drops at all, which is what we have on every trail over here.
Why do you want a DH bike with a single crown that can pedal up singletrack? A dual crown fork is so much better. It is worth the extra weight. I have a Dorado set at 180mm on my 176mm trail bike and it is easily the best fork I have ever had!
Correct me if I’m wrong beings I’m not much of a park but, are some of the park trails marked as dual crown forks only. I...
Correct me if I’m wrong beings I’m not much of a park but, are some of the park trails marked as dual crown forks only. I had heard that Mammoth has trails marked like this?
So my original thought was especially because there’s sooo many 160mm+ travel Enduro bikes out there and a lighter duty 15mm axle dual crown would be the perfect park bike tool.
The weight difference between a 15mm and 20mm axle isn't significant the difference in stiffness is. Why settle for less?
I was thinking about this topic a bit ago, and with the official intro of the Fox 38 I realized that there should totally be more enduro bikes with double crown forks. Not with necessarily 200mm travel, but maybe 180mm or 170mm double crown forks. It seems that the suspension (and mountain bike in general) industry is in a race for stiffness, and double crown is as stiff as it gets. There seems to be this stigma around DC forks, however, that they should only be for descending, so the SC forks are getting wider and wider for stiffness purposes. But the question poses itself, what's stiffer, a Fox 38 or a 35mm stanchioned Rockshox Boxxer? I see no reason why a pro enduro racer wouldn't run a shorter travel DC fork on their bike besides the fact that they aren't really made (BTW credit to @pedal4life's pic, that's basically what I'm talking about). They're not that much heavier, but are that much stiffer, and if placed on the right bike, wouldn't be harder to pedal uphill at all, while providing DH-like stiffness on the DH-like tracks they race. I hope to see DC forks being a more common sight in the enduro circuit over the next 10 years.
Just for funzies I checked weights on some single crown vs. dual crown forks, all in 29". Only 150 grams difference between a new 38 and an existing Boxxer Ultimate.
Fox 38: 2430 grams
New 2021 Rockshox Zeb: no one knows
Rockshox Boxxer Ultimate: 2580 grams
Fox 40: 2816 grams
I was thinking about this topic a bit ago, and with the official intro of the Fox 38 I realized that there should totally be more...
I was thinking about this topic a bit ago, and with the official intro of the Fox 38 I realized that there should totally be more enduro bikes with double crown forks. Not with necessarily 200mm travel, but maybe 180mm or 170mm double crown forks. It seems that the suspension (and mountain bike in general) industry is in a race for stiffness, and double crown is as stiff as it gets. There seems to be this stigma around DC forks, however, that they should only be for descending, so the SC forks are getting wider and wider for stiffness purposes. But the question poses itself, what's stiffer, a Fox 38 or a 35mm stanchioned Rockshox Boxxer? I see no reason why a pro enduro racer wouldn't run a shorter travel DC fork on their bike besides the fact that they aren't really made (BTW credit to @pedal4life's pic, that's basically what I'm talking about). They're not that much heavier, but are that much stiffer, and if placed on the right bike, wouldn't be harder to pedal uphill at all, while providing DH-like stiffness on the DH-like tracks they race. I hope to see DC forks being a more common sight in the enduro circuit over the next 10 years.
The big S had a trail bike with dual crowns a while back, im thinking they probably ditched them because of weight, but now days it makes a bit more sense.
I am not the biggest fan of pedaling up hill, but if I had to dismount when riding up steep switchback because my turn radius is to big because I was running a dual crown fork, I would probably swap them out for a single crown option.
I was thinking about this topic a bit ago, and with the official intro of the Fox 38 I realized that there should totally be more...
I was thinking about this topic a bit ago, and with the official intro of the Fox 38 I realized that there should totally be more enduro bikes with double crown forks. Not with necessarily 200mm travel, but maybe 180mm or 170mm double crown forks. It seems that the suspension (and mountain bike in general) industry is in a race for stiffness, and double crown is as stiff as it gets. There seems to be this stigma around DC forks, however, that they should only be for descending, so the SC forks are getting wider and wider for stiffness purposes. But the question poses itself, what's stiffer, a Fox 38 or a 35mm stanchioned Rockshox Boxxer? I see no reason why a pro enduro racer wouldn't run a shorter travel DC fork on their bike besides the fact that they aren't really made (BTW credit to @pedal4life's pic, that's basically what I'm talking about). They're not that much heavier, but are that much stiffer, and if placed on the right bike, wouldn't be harder to pedal uphill at all, while providing DH-like stiffness on the DH-like tracks they race. I hope to see DC forks being a more common sight in the enduro circuit over the next 10 years.
The big S had a trail bike with dual crowns a while back, im thinking they probably ditched them because of weight, but now days it...
The big S had a trail bike with dual crowns a while back, im thinking they probably ditched them because of weight, but now days it makes a bit more sense.
I am not the biggest fan of pedaling up hill, but if I had to dismount when riding up steep switchback because my turn radius is to big because I was running a dual crown fork, I would probably swap them out for a single crown option.
Right but techy climbs aren't really what enduro bikes are for, at least at the EWS level. when I think enduro, I think fire roads and dh runs. But yeah, If my riding consisted partially of tech climbs, I would want a SC fork, and honestly shorter travel all around than what I consider "enduro".
Over the years I've had trail bikes with DCs and would also just go out for trail rides on my Super 8 and I don't recall ever being put out about my turning radius.
Just for funzies I checked weights on some single crown vs. dual crown forks, all in 29". Only 150 grams difference between a new 38 and...
Just for funzies I checked weights on some single crown vs. dual crown forks, all in 29". Only 150 grams difference between a new 38 and an existing Boxxer Ultimate.
Fox 38: 2430 grams
New 2021 Rockshox Zeb: no one knows
Rockshox Boxxer Ultimate: 2580 grams
Fox 40: 2816 grams
it also has a 212mm Vecnum Nivo Dropper, 32:9-46t cassette on 150mm hub.
I have had it set up with 27.5 front and rear with a Fox 40, but it was a bit heavy for wheel lifts, and the front wheel felt small after having some mullet bike setups. So now i am running it happily with 180mm 29" fork and 29" front wheel.
The seat angle is about 74deg, and i can get my post low enough to buzz the rear tire on the seatback at bottom out, and high enough to pedal up steep roads; i find this to be a major crux for most bikes.
It pedaled ok with a 34t ring but suspnesion pedaling kinemnatics works better with 32t, and is more useful gear range.
I have a dhx 5.0 coil shock on it with propedal, which is a digressive LSC valve, the knob is easily in reach and lubed up so it spins easily on the fly near the top or bottom of the trail. i only use it when i have a ways to go, it doesnt pedal badly anyways, if i get a good cadence going it is quite smooth and negligable, it just isnt as peppy when mashed on as a dw link bike.
The bike weighs 36 lbs, i can climb, decent, huck almost anything. i regularly jump into rough landings and case, it is really nice to have that extra 50mm of travel compared to an "enduro" bike. with the right kinematics setup and form travel does not have a bearing on how a bike pedals, it has everything to do with dynamic springrate and kinematics.
Axle to crown length of forks is fairly fixed. Longer axle to crown forks have a clear disadvantage. By shortening headtube, headset, slimming the toptube and going to dual crown forks we can shorten the stack height without limiting fork travel, but we cannot keep making big wheel bikes with long travel singlecrown forks and keep reasonable stackheights. When it comes to rear travel there is not the same limitus on stack height, cause it doesnt really exist.. if you were to make a similar contraiint it would be seat/seattube interfereance with rear tire. bikes with short chainstays have problems in this regard, if you are willing to realize the benifits of longer chainstays or move the lower saddle position forward this can be worked around, problem is most bikes are just copying specialized enduro still so thinking outside the box is hard and scary apparently, and the industry and media lackeys dont encourage it.
First, Steve is a smart dude, but he's not the end all be all of suspension commentary. He also thought the Monarch was as good as a Super Deluxe. My personal opinion and on trail experience riding both of these shocks back to back does not in anyway suggest this to be true.
Second, in a lot of ways suspension has stayed the same. Its just oil going through various holes and shims after all. That said, I'm 100% positive my 2019-2020 stuff is worlds better than anything of yesteryear. Want proof? The Totem hasn't gone up in price. The Fox shock you are speaking of isn't super sought after. Hell, you can barely give them away.
Third, your first sentence literally described an old school freeride bike. "high bb, long travel single crown, be able to pedal to the top". What am I missing?
The market moved away from this because most riders find they are able to absolutely crush technical single track (or any kind of trail) on a 170-150mm bike at least as good as a bike with more travel that is heavier. They also climb better being they are often less portly. Some people may fall outside this generalization (like the poster, who instead of complaining on the internet went and built his dream machine - PROPS!).
I get passionate in debates like this because I *firmly* believe its a great time to be a bike rider. Even complete bikes that are $3K work really damn well. Far better than the best bike 10 years ago did. There isn't some kind of mass conspiracy here to keep you riding shitty parts.
You are looking for technology to do something most people aren't. You are citing a fork's huck-to-flat performance as somehow an indicator of a suspension product not doing what you want it to do. I'm not God's Gift to mountain biking but I still race at a pro level regionally. I'm not sure I've ridden "double diamond trails on a freeride bike" but I have ridden WC courses on a DH bike. I'm also bigger and like to smash. I don't find my suspension to be excessively bottoming out. In fact, I often run my suspension as linear as I can!
Again, I sincerely think you are barking up the wrong tree, or a tree nobody else is barking up.
As far as the BMX comment, I was talking more about the urban guys. Or go look at the trials guys. I promise they are hucking more to flat with zero suspension than anyone here is with alllllllllllllllll the travel.
I highly recommend it. If you ignore the hate it never goes away, it just festers in a small corner somewhere deep down inside. I also recommend hate riding bikes that suck, are too heavy, etc. You travel through the hate, and on the other side you're more appreciative. For instance, I actually appreciate riding Sandy Ridge now.
I had to craft my words lightly,as Ive got a bit of a migraine going and not really up to the task of going toe to toe with you today
Really feel a properly designed downhill bike with compromises for climbing can work as a quiver killer
Maybe not for everyone particulaly those of smaller stature since there isn't any way to get around the high stack height.
> I get passionate in debates like this because I *firmly* believe its a great time to be a bike rider
Dude. This sport is dead. Remember when MTB was on all the major TV networks? There were 30 million riders. All kinds of A-list non-cycling companies sponsored teams. Hundreds and hundreds of people made a living riding mountain bikes through pro contracts? All that is gone. Even the participation numbers have hollowed out by half in fifteen years. All the money drained out of the sport. Can you name 10 XC racers, or list the locations of the world cup races? Laughable.
Like, this is my sport and a major part of my life, but it's been fully, utterly destroyed by almost any objective measure.
By the numbers, the amount of bike-shop level mountain bikes sold per year is now about equal to the number of bikes stolen per year. About 80% of the shops died and went out of business.
If you look at a shredit video, I'd bet you can't even tell if it was made this year or 5 years ago. There's no progression evident at all any more. I can't stomach to watch a guy drink coffee for 30 seconds and then ride his bike at 120% playback speed for 30 seconds while being completely unoriginal.
Today a friend of mine asked me about "mullet bikes". We mulled it over a little and he said, basically, that there is so little technical innovation that people are actually "bored" of the tech not actually moving at all. I think that's true. The show must go on even if there's no show.
I remember doing national level races in the US with 2500 racers in just a single category. I was in a race with over 6000 participants. That was at the peak. Have you been exposed to any other organized sports? Ice hockey and women's gymnastics make those numbers look ridiculously, pitifully small, and their organizations make mountain biking organizations look like total amateur hour. A mountain bike organization can barely afford staff or programming. Like...hockey pays for all that PLUS amazingly expensive infrastructure, property, maintenance, zambonis and on and on. Plus it has a pro league, stadiums, fans, ticket sales, merch, TV and on and on. Like...MTB is not a "great" sport, and this particular time in MTB is lame as hell.
I strongly advise you to go on "roots and rain" and scroll through the race results. A lot of the races have ~150 riders in all categories put together. The largest races in the whole world last year never topped 1000 participants. None that I can see went over 900 riders.
Back in the day, I used to run into 200 riders just out riding on the trails on a Wednesday night. By comparison now, I can ride multiple rides without seeing any riders at all. There are some benefits to being a rider today, that's for sure. No crowds. But I'd hardly call it the "great time" for mountain biking. I build trails, belong to several clubs, teach riding at the local high schools and live and breathe this sport. But it has major problems. Among them is that it was killed off by a lot of people who absolutely refused to think about it objectively. Remember windsurfing? How about inline skating? Yep. Outside of the enthusiast echo chamber, mountain biking is dead. Windsurfers are on their own forum laughing about mountain bikes right now: "That's the sport that total nerds debate suspension numbers, right?"
Skiing and snowboarding have this thing where they have done very exhaustive surveys of participants longer than any other outdoor action sport. Over time, the participation numbers have declined year over year. But the days-per-year of the surviving participants has gone up and up. Basically, snowboarders used to number in the millions, and they would typically ride 10 days a year say. Now there are very very few riders, but they all ride 100 days. This is an extremely well studied phenomenon.
If you think hard about that, it's an illustration of what happens now in MTB as well. People who ride are REALLY excited and committed to riding, but there really aren't many of them any more, and all the serious opportunities to grow the sport appear to have left a long time ago. A bunch of "true fans" saying that the sport is great isn't the same as a great sport with mass appeal.
If I remember correctly, that famous marketing survey for the province of BC touted the commercial potential of mountain biking tourism for the province. It's significant compared to what you or I earn at a job, but I think I'm not too far wrong if I state that mountain biking tourism in a whole year earns the whole province about the same as a single Nascar race weekend. It's basically nothing in the great scheme of it all.
Seriously, what you just said is ridiculous rubbish. Wake up. Mountain biking is on life support.
No...I know what you really are saying. Bikes used to be tricky to ride. They were maneuverable. Bikes today have prioritized stability over all other qualities. Even a complete newbie can avoid rocketing OTB when they crank on the brake lever, now.
Then you look at the pros. Alloy rims. 26" wheels on their bikes. Tiny undersized frames. Nothing like what normal riders ride. My buddy is a former national champion and he keeps saying that the best time for bikes was 5-10 years ago.
Q: how do you sell a rank beginner a set of golf clubs
A: stick a "pro" sticker on the beginner model
> Second, in a lot of ways suspension has stayed the same. Its just oil going through various holes and shims after all.
Look. Go back and actually slow down and read the whole engineering paper I originally posted. None (zero) of that spring rate tech involved oil passing through shim stacks. You seem to have completely failed to process the information that's actually covered in the paper.
> Third, your first sentence literally described an old school freeride bike. "high bb, long travel single crown, be able to pedal to the top". What am I missing?
Geometry, flex, componentry. You are reading what you think I'm saying, but you actually aren't listening. You're arguing right past my actual point. Have you actually seen a freeride bike? Ever owned one or ridden one?
> The market moved away from this because most riders find they are able to absolutely crush technical single track (or any kind of trail) on a 170-150mm bike at least as good as a bike with more travel that is heavier.
My perception is that this is all just perception. Like, here you are arguing that "you can absolutely" whatever, but you actually don't know. You haven't tested your assumption:
" I'm not sure I've ridden "double diamond trails on a freeride bike"
There's the heart of the issue. You're debating the figment of your imagination's idea of "freeride". Before you spout any more thoughts about this abstract idea you have, I'll remind you that there's a real world that actually doesn't care about how the logical shortcuts in your mind work. You would benefit by actually knowing what freeride bikes ride like. As a starting exercise, try actually timing some A/B runs on a trail you know. Or ride with riders you know well. See what you find out.
Like...you ride pro class regional DH right? So you ride an Enduro bike for those competitions, I assume? It's "absolutely" able to crush because it's lighter, correct?
Just to blow up the superficiality of what you're saying you understand about bikes...let's say that there's a 40mm single crown fork that is 100% identical to another 36mm single crown fork. Same damper, same tech, same wheel axle, same everything except the chassis. Weight is the same, paint job is the same. So which is better for tech trails? Do you need stiffness or compliance? What does your "theory" tell you? I'm going to hazard a guess that even if you're right about your 50% odds-of-being-right guess, the actual acid test will be from what you learn actually riding your bike. You don't actually know, because you have no way to know without doing what I'm saying you should do.
> Again, I sincerely think you are barking up the wrong tree, or a tree nobody else is barking up.
I know you do.
Back when things like freeride, 4-cross, slopestyle, trials, dual slalom, urban assault, uphill racing, singlespeed, fixie, supercross and other fringe disciplines existed, these were always, always marginal pursuits. But all kinds of bike companies produced bikes and spec'ed them and sold them to slim markets, making money and making all kinds of riding possible. Even for the fringes. There's nothing that has changed about the economics of that. What once worked could work today, but only if the investments around carbon molds didn't have to be amortized over many thousands of units.
Specialized, just for one example, used to produce 800 models of bikes a few years ago. I just checked now, and they have 375 models this year, that's even INCLUDING e-bikes.
Rock Shox used to have about 30 fork families. They now have about 15.
If you don't understand what's been lost so far, I'm not sure what you're doing here in this particular conversation about what's holding back the industry from producing "200mm+ Enduro Bikes". If you simply don't know why someone would want one of those or what you would do with them or what would be required to make this product actually workable...so what are you doing here, actually?
My main point is that the 200mm Enduro bike has been damned by the forces that have whittled down all the selection and range we used to have.
For example, when Santa Cruz came out with the Nomad Gen 3 around 2014, it came with a 165mm back end and a 150mm front end. It was a complete disaster of a bike because it was impossible to spec due to the lack of fork options. I'm only just pointing out that the 200+mm bike has this same issue, only worse. A 200+mm fork based on a 36mm chassis is going to have the same bushing grab issues that the 150mm pike had on that Nomad. We've been down this road at least twice before in mountain bike history. It's a doomed idea.
Everything you've written has left me completely unconvinced that we don't need the products in the long-travel pedal category. My trails have up to 10 foot drops on them. I have to pedal 5000' vertical to reach the drop ins. If you don't know what "excessively bottoming out" is like, you don't feel my pain. I am running custom oil, custom shims, higher pressures, lower sag, tire inserts and I still have issues.
Not so long ago, we made bikes for the trails we had. Now, we are forced to make (flow) trails that are dumbed down enough for the bikes that the industry wants to sell us. A lot of riders are thrilled about all the "trail development" and it's the "greatest time to be a mountain biker". And then you travel the country and see that every town has the exact same trail and you forget to flick your lockout lever and it doesn't even matter.
A couple of days ago I bought some bike parts off a local enduro racer. Before I got to leave with my parts in hand I had to listen to an angry rant about how bad the bikes are this year and how disappointing the lack of real selection is. This all happened since we started this conversation. It's not just a "me" problem.
I think your answering exactly why there arn't more long travel/freeride/enduro whatever you call it bikes. The largest group of people in our sport who are spending money on bikes is the new rider or intermediate class rider. People who only have been in the sport for under five years.
Same reason why the most ridden trail at Whistler is Crank it up. The average rider is barely able to clear a 10 foot perfectly constructed table. They arn't interested in tech of ANY difficulty level.
So I think a lot of tech has gone that way. Making bikes more fun for the masses and less for the small section of people who are freeriding. I think this is why you see most people who are riding rowdy stuff on DH bikes these days.
If I'm wrong, I would appreciate you showing me this trail, I will substantiate the rest of your post if this is the case.
I could spend the better part of the hour showing everyone who reads your conspiracy theorist victim based rant fest how ill founded your facts are. You really ought to start a tin foil hat thread somewhere else lol.
You aren't a victim of an industry that is somehow forcing you into riding worse product with less choices. That's not how markets work. I'm guessing economics have never been a strong suit for you.
While there will always be room for improvement, or some sort of pivot in any space, the idea that "the industry" somehow gathers behind closed doors and decides what to ram down our throats is hilarious at best.
I'm very confident when I say "its a hell of a time to be a bike rider; you get so much performance for so little money its amazing".
I'm even willing to put my money where my mouth is. I'd happily take a $3K Nukeproof and ride it in any enduro race in the world. The kicker? I know I wouldn't be able to blame my bike if (when) my results suck. The bike industry is realizing the Pareto principle on steroids.
Have you owned something like the CanyoneTorque? Santa Cruz Nomad? Specialized Enduro (new one)? Any of the 170-180mm "super enduro" bikes? You still think you need more travel?
Are you secretly Josh Bender sans 15 years?
The poster asked a question. "Why don't we have 200mm enduro bikes". The answer, clearly, is they don't work as well for enduro purpose as the bikes we have. Racing is really good at vetting ideas and seeing what works. Sometimes the wheels of R&D turn too slowly, sometimes ideas are just plain bad and sometimes they are just too niche. I'd say this one is just too niche.
If you want to ride a 200mm "enduro" bike, go for it. For a certain type of rider, it makes total sense! But it won't be faster, and it won't be all that more capable. It might be more comfortable however, and it might be a pile of fun! The best part is there really isn't anything in the way of you doing this. There are frames that you could buy that'd totally work!
That isn't the bike industry oppressing you. Its just how the industry has evolved to better serve a market (of more riders, riding more trails...)
Canfield just released the one.2. They're marketing it as a pedalable downhill bike. Seat angle looks great for seated pedaling hopefully not too much kickback on a wide range cassette.
Climbed with the bike again today to get to the trail head and it felt great. Didn't Bob at all when seated.
I predict we'll be seeing more bikes like the Canfield one.2 this year. A 29er Jedi would be awesome and not too disimilar to my bike.
Nicolai allow you to customize their G1 to have more travel if you want it.
Paul Aston has big wheeled 200mm G1 and loves it!
https://www.instagram.com/astonmtb/
I do agree that if you don't have the terrain for it then it is too much bike but then so is a 180mm or 160mm bike depending on where you ride!
Fox 38: 2430 grams
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https://www.pinkbike.com/news/first-ride-new-fox-38-fork-pond-beaver-20…
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I am not the biggest fan of pedaling up hill, but if I had to dismount when riding up steep switchback because my turn radius is to big because I was running a dual crown fork, I would probably swap them out for a single crown option.
I don't really find more than 150/160mm useful outside huge jumps and bikeparks with brake bumps...
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