Ideal Suspension Travel for SoCal is.....?

Ideal travel is

  • travel? Completely rigid!

    Votes: 1 2.0%

  • All you need is a hardtail and the right skills...

    Votes: 5 10.0%

  • 100-110mm

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 120-140mm

    Votes: 31 62.0%

  • 150-160mm

    Votes: 11 22.0%

  • Full enduro Brah, 170mm plus..

    Votes: 2 4.0%
  • Total voters
    50
How much complicance do you want your tires to have on the terrain?

I have never seen a hardtail Jeep 4x4
Nor a hardtail dirtbike at any Super Cross event.
There are a dozen classes in the baja 500, not one of which is a hardtail off road vheicle. The rage continues!!!!!
 
dustyyoungblood said:
How much complicance do you want your tires to have on the terrain?

I have never seen a hardtail Jeep 4x4
Nor a hardtail dirtbike at any Super Cross event.
There are a dozen classes in the baja 500, not one of which is a hardtail off road vheicle. The rage continues!!!!!
Click to expand...
You describe races. Unless it’s a Buff-o-Rama, hardtails are slower and may not even finish the race if they’re pushed hard.
 
HBkites said:
For me, climbing fire road is not a "skill".
Click to expand...

I would agree with this. I don't consider it a skill so much as an "ability". For me, aside from the personal enjoyment, I climb the fire roads because it keeps my cholesterol under 170 and my blood pressure rock solid.

"Job opening... need local package delivery in Cleveland National Forest. Must be able to climb 4500' and not bitch about it. Pay based on experience." That's an ability... not a skill.

Put differently... I have a close friend and we run together every week. After we ran a half marathon that wasn't too kindly to my knees, I tried to get him to mountain bike with me. He would climb all my trails like a mountain goat... but he would walk downhill almost all the trails that I would consider "tame". It was strange to see a guy walk the downhills in Whiting Ranch, for example. He just didn't have the confidence / skill to do it.

My son, who swam @ Olympic trials, is an amazing cardiovascular athlete. I took him out on Harding and he floated up the trail like it was effortless - without losing a breath. But descending it, he was scared to death. I don't understand it... but it is because I have some minimum level of "skill" where that kind of technical riding is almost non-technical... but to others it is a big deal.
 
Maybe this is a Captain obvious statement, but nobody has mentioned Experience. It probably all relates with skill/ability etc. I noticed at work , as many of us probably can agree with, there is no substitute for experience! So some of us have probably evolved in our bike preferences.

And remember back in the day when you would argue what the best speakers are???? The answer was, "what ever sound best to YOU"
 
scan said:
Maybe this is a Captain obvious statement, but nobody has mentioned Experience. It probably all relates with skill/ability etc. I noticed at work , as many of us probably can agree with, there is no substitute for experience! So some of us have probably evolved in our bike preferences.

And remember back in the day when you would argue what the best speakers are???? The answer was, "what ever sound best to YOU"
Click to expand...
“When I used to ride a lot...”
 
dustyyoungblood said:
How much complicance do you want your tires to have on the terrain?

I have never seen a hardtail Jeep 4x4
Nor a hardtail dirtbike at any Super Cross event.
There are a dozen classes in the baja 500, not one of which is a hardtail off road vheicle. The rage continues!!!!!
Click to expand...
DangerDirtyD said:
You describe races. Unless it’s a Buff-o-Rama, hardtails are slower and may not even finish the race if they’re pushed hard.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm... 10 time VQ finisher, including Upper Holy Jim, on a 26" fully rigid single speed all 10 years. But, those guys don't tend to do forums or spend time arguing about suspension. They ride.

And then there's the guy on a fully rigid, including Upper Holy Jim, who finished the race, and then ran it backwards on foot. Those are the guys I'll choose to listen to... Even though I'll never ride like them.

Just don't ask what happened on his 11th try. :whistling:
 
Last edited:
Faust29 said:
Hmmmm... 10 time VQ finisher, including Upper Holy Jim, on a 26" fully rigid single speed all 10 years. But, those guys don't tend to do forums or spend time arguing about suspension. They ride.

And then there's the guy on a fully rigid, including Upper Holy Jim, who finished the race, and then ran it backwards on foot. Those are the guys I'll choose to listen to... Even though I'll never ride like them.

Just don't ask what happened on his 11th try. :whistling:
Click to expand...
The cut-offs were made by the gains from climbing, which is 80% of the time spent on the saddle. I would bet the rigid rider had a solid conga line behind him on the downs. If not, I’d like to ride with that guy.
 
DangerDirtyD said:
The cut-offs were made by the gains from climbing, which is 80% of the time spent on the saddle. I would bet the rigid rider had a solid conga line behind him on the downs. If not, I’d like to ride with that guy.
Click to expand...

Good point, but he’s not on strava, so hard to tell. He was a top finisher many times, though, so he’s not walking anything...

While looking to see if he was on Strava, I did find a VQ entry from a few years ago. The #2 all time on UHJ is by a local pro on a fully rigid single speed... under 4 minutes. I can’t even picture what that looks like. It’s about two minutes faster than anyone on IMTB who’s on Strava. :confused: The trail was probably in better shape than it is now, but still...
 
Last edited:
I rode my 160mm 29er Enduro Thursday.

I raced my 100mm HT yesterday. I bottomed out the damn fork more times than I could count (2-3 times a lap or more, 5 laps), setup correctly. It was a hard tail course. The FS wouldn't have provided much traction benefit over the weight gain and efficiency loss. But as I only locked the fork for the start/finish sector of the course, it definitely wasn't a rigid bike course!

Everyone has a different ideal.
 
Faust29 said:
Good point, but he’s not on strava, so hard to tell. He was a top finisher many times, though, so he’s not walking anything...

While looking to see if he was on Strava, I did find a VQ entry from a few years ago. The #2 all time on UHJ is by a local pro on a fully rigid single speed... under 4 minutes. I can’t even picture what that looks like. It’s about two minutes faster than anyone on IMTB who’s on Strava. :confused: The trail was probably in better shape than it is now, but still...
Click to expand...
I bet he ain’t rolling 220 pounds naked. At any rate, I get that it’s more involved to ride sans suspension, similar to riding a 26er vs a 29er or a pedal bike vs an E-Bike, but at 25+ mph, rocks just don’t play nice with rubber mounted to metal or carbon.
 
Lots of great insight as always. Definitely no one correct answer as it depends on the rider and where they ride. There is such a huge variety of trails here, within 3 or 4 hours drive.

The biggest factor is probably what the rider is looking for.... Personally, I'd prefer a decent all rounded machine...

I was watching a bike check with Nate Hills, on his you tube channel, and he said the sb4.5 was his everyday go to bike, because it adequately covers the widest range riding, even light enduro.
 
I do 90 percent of my riding out my door, hitting dirt a quarter mile from my house. There is not a huge variety of trails nearby, but I can do some steep fire road climbs, windey, flat-ish singletrack, some entertaining downs or somewhat technical ups, much of it within a five-mile radius (thanks to some of the hard-working trail builders, even if they're work isn't, ummm...sanctioned). On any given day I may ride those trails on a 140mm full-suspension bike, a 100mm carbon hardtail or a rigid singlespeed steelie. The bike choice makes the ride quite different, and allows me to make greater variety of my limited trail options. That said, if I'm going to be doing those steep fire road climbs, there's really only one choice, no matter what the rest of the ride may entail. And if I'm going to go to Snow Summit or Mammoth, the hardtail or the rigid aren't coming with me (unless I have room, perhaps....). But most places in OC, I could ride any of them and make the ride a different experience from one time to the next. So, yes, while particular trails may need a particular type of bike, the right travel for SoCal depends on my mood.
 
dustyyoungblood said:
The Olympic MTB racers have the hardtail riding wired. That’s were i look for inspiration. Video included in Link

http://www.ilovebicycling.com/olympic-crashes-in-the-rio-mens-mountain-bike-event/
Click to expand...

All these guys made a choice to ride HT. I'm sure all of them had access to a race FS bike.
The man-made race course in Rio was much more technical than most of our local trails.
I'm sure Nino would be surprisingly impressive if he chooses to race enduro...... He is that good.
 
Any WC level XC racer would probably equal a national level DH Pro. A WC DH Pro would probably equal a national level XC pro.

The skills/power/endurance difference between them all is close enough that they would probably only drop a level (world to national, national to local, local to Cat 1, etc). That is across disciplines that is. Nino would probably be fighting for the wins at EWS.
 
I still say regardless of the terrain it's whatever you prefer. Watching @mtnbikej descend fire roads with boulder size chunk and Trabuco Canyon with a good amount of baby head shale in the middle on his hardtail confirms my theory. Personally if I didn't do any big rides I would have a long travel Enduro bike. I just love the cushy feel on the descents.
 
HBkites said:
All these guys made a choice to ride HT. I'm sure all of them had access to a race FS bike.
The man-made race course in Rio was much more technical than most of our local trails.
I'm sure Nino would be surprisingly impressive if he chooses to race enduro...... He is that good.
Click to expand...

That’s right, the riders made a choice to be a ping pong ball through the boulders in the biggest race of their lives. Why? Because it’s a calculated risk to run a lighter bike to try to hang onto Nino on the climbs.

But what if the min weight requirement was 30lb? How would that change World Cup XC? You would see better tires and zero hardtails and they would gap those nasty rocks.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dustyyoungblood said:
That’s right, the riders made a choice to be a ping pong ball through the boulders in the biggest race of their lives. Why? Because it’s a calculated risk to run a lighter bike to try to hang onto Nino on the climbs.

But what is the min weight requirement was 30lb? How would that change World Cup XC? You would see better tires and zero hardtails
Click to expand...

And next we'll be introducing 28mm tires and 18 pound bikes to Red Bull Rampage... It would look a lot different. :rolleyes:
 
UPSed said:
I still say regardless of the terrain it's whatever you prefer. Watching @mtnbikej descend fire roads with boulder size chunk and Trabuco Canyon with a good amount of baby head shale in the middle on his hardtail confirms my theory. Personally if I didn't do any big rides I would have a long travel Enduro bike. I just love the cushy feel on the descents.
Click to expand...

Yep... If I only rode Whiting, Luge or similar, I'd have a DH bike. It's the only thing big enough to smooth out the braking bumps at county park level.
 
dustyyoungblood said:
That’s right, the riders made a choice to be a ping pong ball through the boulders in the biggest race of their lives. Why? Because it’s a calculated risk to run a lighter bike to try to hang onto Nino on the climbs.

But what is the min weight requirement was 30lb? How would that change World Cup XC? You would see better tires and zero hardtails
Click to expand...
If World Cup XC is the ultimate stage why incorporate minimum weight. Those guys are there to test the stuff before we buy it....
For me, it makes more sense to create a max rider to bike weight ratio in Enduro, and let the manufacture figure out a way to make the bike durable (and even more entertaining). We will all benefit from that.
 
Last edited:
HBkites said:
If World Cup XC is the ultimate stage why incorporate minimum weight. Those guys are there to test the stuff before we buy it....
For me, it makes more sense to create a max rider to bike weight ratio in Enduro, and let the manufacture figure out a way to make the bike durable (and even more entertaining). We will all benefit from that.
Click to expand...

You've missed my point completely. What I intended to convey is that riding that Rio course on a HT, through those planted rocks was a significant serious risk to ones health(and career). Not so different than riding say "Lynx" in Aliso without being seriously injured. Yet, the Rio racers still went to HT's because they are looking for every advantage in watts/kg. Because even a small % margin of watts/kg over the competition does mean medal or no medal. So if a 30lb min. bike wieght rule was there in Rio, who would have still picked a HT? I am saying NOBODY because it would just be stupid . I am a strong believer that just about everyone should be packing a little more bike than they really "NEED" for all those times were you guess a little wrong, miss a line, or plain just go to fast.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Faust29 said:
Good point, but he’s not on strava, so hard to tell. He was a top finisher many times, though, so he’s not walking anything...

While looking to see if he was on Strava, I did find a VQ entry from a few years ago. The #2 all time on UHJ is by a local pro on a fully rigid single speed... under 4 minutes. I can’t even picture what that looks like. It’s about two minutes faster than anyone on IMTB who’s on Strava. :confused: The trail was probably in better shape than it is now, but still...
Click to expand...

Wait until I enter my Strava time. I'll be riding a unicycle and will crush everyone out there :)

I hate Strava. Therefore I will post false results to deflate all the Strava whores out there :) I mean that in a positive way. Set goals against yourself. Worry less about others. It saddens me to see all the egos flying around out there... which in truth just mean people who lack ego.

Every time I ride my best... I set a new Greg Peterson world record. That's all that matters.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top