[taxonomy]

I’ve got to say that I came from longer more ‘progressive’ bikes and found them to be oil tankers. Most bikes are just too long in every way now.  Everyone wants to go downhill like their in a YouTube video but unless your on your parents insurance and live in the Cascades that’s not likely.

Designers tried to move the front axel forward to make the bikes more slack for downhill.  So they slackened the heat tube angle. Then they pushed the front axel further away from the bottom bracket and made the reach longer.  The the top tube was way too long so they made the seat tube angle steeper.   They say “puts you in a better position for climbing” but if that were true mountain stage Tour De France bikes would be built this way, besides riders have been moving forward on their seats for years. Now the front center is way too long with the long reach and slack HTA and you can’t really shorten the back so the whole bike winds up being too long.

Stable is the opposite of maneuverable. We’ve wound up with less maneuverable bikes because everything is a down scalded downhill bike now. Sure, if your focus is bombing downhills and 8′ gaps a very stable (and not maneuverable) bike is just for you.

Another thing about these long reach bikes is that out of the saddle you just cannot weight the front end properly by standing on the pedals. You have to support your body weight by getting over the bars and that’s just not good form.  Heavy feet, light hands.

One review of the Yeti SB130 said “is this bike for you? it depends on how many pushups you can do”.   The Transition Spur is basically a downhill bike with XC suspension.  This makes as much sense as a Baja 1000 truck with track suspension being entered in a GT sportscar race.

 

I wound up getting an Epic Evo because it’s somewhere in between modern geo and a more traditional bike.

[Author]

Posts