The Stoke is an occasional opinion series highlighting the things that get us stoked about mountain biking. 🤘 👍 👏 🙏
It’s common knowledge among mountain bikers that a hardtail is ideal for trail riding in the winter. And yet, I’m not sure I ever fully understood why. Like, is it because hardtails don’t have pivots and a shock? Esteemed Singletracks contributor and bike mechanic Sam James makes a good point here that “you can ride [a hardtail] in any weather and spend a lot less time working on your bike.”
I agree that it’s easier to wash a hardtail after a muddy winter ride since the frame doesn’t have as many awkward nooks and crannies to clean. But that’s not the real reason I’m spending more time on my hardtail this fall and winter.
Never underestimate the hardtail
Before I tell you why a hardtail is a good choice for winter riding, I need to explain how hardtails work for those who haven’t ever experienced the thrill of riding one, or at least not for a while.
Every now and then, I’ll hear someone say something like, “You need at least 150mm of rear suspension travel to ride trail XYZ.” Maybe that’s because the trail is technical, or maybe because it has big jumps. The thing is, I’ve ridden more than a few of those trails on my hardtail without a problem. Is that because I’m an amazing rider? No. I just ride the trail slower than you do on your 150mm bike.
And that’s the important thing to understand about hardtail mountain bikes. Since the rear wheel is fixed, it doesn’t track rocky, rooty ground as well as the rear wheel on a full-suspension bike. So you have to slow down, otherwise you’ll quickly get out of control and crash.
When it comes to jumping, well, just look at dirt jump bikes. They don’t have rear suspension, so clearly that’s not required, even for really big jumps. That is, until you combine those jumps with speed.
I’m sure someone can come up with a scenario where a rider simply can’t ride a particular feature or trail without a full suspension bike. Personally, I can’t think of one that I’ve encountered in 20+ years of riding. What I do know for sure is that I ride downhill slower on my hardtail.
It’s the bike for slower, winter rides
OK, so hardtails don’t let you ride as fast as a full-suspension bike. You know what else doesn’t let you ride fast? Fallen leaves on the trail. Soft and muddy dirt. In short, it’s the stuff we encounter on our winter rides.
For years, I’ve followed the trail maintenance debate around blowing fallen leaves off the trail or letting them lie. From a maintenance perspective, there are good arguments either way.
But from a rider’s perspective, leaves suck. They’re slippery, which means you have no traction in the corners or on the climbs. They cover every rock and root, so you’re never sure when to push or pop. If it were up to me, I’d blow the leaves off every trail before riding.
Instead, I pedal my hardtail. It climbs better than my full suspension bike, and since I’m forced to ride the brakes a little harder on the downhills, I have the perfect speed for staying in control through loose, leafy corners.
For sure, on flowy, jumpy trails, I prefer riding a full-suspension bike. However, unlike natural, hand-built trails, the jump trails around here get soft and sticky, especially in the early winter. A surefire way to get on the bad side of your local dirt jump builder is to ride a jump when it’s soft. With a full-suspension bike, that’s tempting. For me, riding a hardtail, it’s not.
The other trick to mountain biking in cold weather is to remember that slower is warmer. There’s that perfect speed where you’re working hard enough to keep your body warm, but not going so fast that the windchill is giving you the shivers. Here again, a hardtail has me rolling just right.
Couldn’t you just ride your full-suspension bike slower in the winter? Absolutely! But the advantage of a hardtail is that it weighs less, pedals more efficiently, and yes, it’s easier to clean after a muddy ride. To me, those advantages aren’t usually worth the speed tradeoff in summer months, but in the winter, the calculus is different.
Perhaps you’ll disagree with me here, but I also think winter is the time for slowing down. For taking riding less seriously. For indulging in a different kind of fun, the kind that only a hardtail can deliver when you’re riding with friends, just happy to be out in the woods instead of cooped up indoors.
At the beginning of this fall, I started fixing up my beloved hardtail, which sat neglected through the entire summer. I upgraded the fork with a used Pike Ultimate that I bought off a friend. I bled the brakes. I washed off the dust and finally got around to trimming all the cables and hoses nice and neat. Even though I may not be ready, my bike is ready for winter.
Ultimately, mountain bikers ride uphill because we want to ride downhill, and fast is fun. In winter, I would argue that slow is fun too. Especially when you have the right bike for it.
Hardtail season is finally here. And I’m stoked.
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