Thanks guys. You’ve peaked my interest. I just might rent a modern bike for a weekend.
Maybe throw down $ for a pure dirt ride and use the old soft tail for street and trail.
- Thread starter jbell
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Maybe throw down $ for a pure dirt ride and use the old soft tail for street and trail.
I have two Onyx hubs and they are really great. If I build a wheelset, that's what I use.
Absolutely not. If you have a mountain bike with any front derailleur, you should really try a new mountain bike of any brand. You will be shocked at how much technology has changed.
I have at least two bikes in the garage with triples, but there is no way in hell you'll see me on any trail mountain bike that isn't 1x.
You will have NO use for that thing after you try something with modern geometry, a dropper, and 1x.
My poor old Trex 1st gen full suspension MTB is a bit silly compared to my Husky Extreme Cross EMTB. If I tried my old bike on some of the same trails I used the EC on I'd be making payments on hospital bills right now, LOL.
Everything is more refined on the EC and it doesn't even have top of the line componentry on it.
Everything is more refined on the EC and it doesn't even have top of the line componentry on it.
So I have made the decision to go back to racing single speed mountain bikes again. That is all I rode or raced for over 10 years, but last couple of years I have been riding and racing modern full suspension “super bikes”. While they are definitely faster I miss the rawness and challenge of racing a single speed in long endurance events. Since I am moving to Arkansas here soon and will be learning all new trails and have the ability to do all new events I figured there is no better time than now to switch. So I built a new Spot Rocker Carbon. I am going to have the ability to throw gears on it really quickly for specific training and gravel racing. The Rocker being belt drive compatible & AXS makes it a 2 minute swap and I don’t even need to break a quick link to swap chains. It should be pretty cool!
I sold my “gravel bike” (S-Works Crux) and am selling my full suspension rig (2022 Specialized Epic Evo) so that I have no option but to train on the hard tail and single speed most of the time at that. I know the kind of fitness I can achieve only doing monster rides on the SS & I am looking forward to pushing those limits again. It will be interesting to see if I can still hang with the young riders on the latest and greatest full squish rigs.
I sold my “gravel bike” (S-Works Crux) and am selling my full suspension rig (2022 Specialized Epic Evo) so that I have no option but to train on the hard tail and single speed most of the time at that. I know the kind of fitness I can achieve only doing monster rides on the SS & I am looking forward to pushing those limits again. It will be interesting to see if I can still hang with the young riders on the latest and greatest full squish rigs.
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Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of the new SS. I haven't ridden it outside yet, but it's comfortable for my 3 hour Sunday trainer workouts. I can't wait to get it dirty!
Thats not a gravel bike......it's a bike that insanely strong and fit individuals jump on to make us mere mortals look like amateurs on the trail.
Single speed is not in my vocabulary, I need all the help I can get.
I had a chance to ride one several years ago at a bike demo with their belt drive system, it was really cool.
Sweet ride there jbell !!!!
Thats not a gravel bike......it's a bike that insanely strong and fit individuals jump on to make us mere mortals look like amateurs on the trail.
Single speed is not in my vocabulary, I need all the help I can get.
I had a chance to ride one several years ago at a bike demo with their belt drive system, it was really cool.
Sweet ride there jbell !!!!
In the year 2024, anything without a dropper post is a gravel bike.
I have one 1x as well as a 2x in the garage. While I like the lack of shifting in the front, I also like having that big chainring when things start getting fast.
I'll pass on the triple tho.
I had an old Prophet in my stand the other day getting a tune up. New tires, cables, yadda yadda yadda. Reminded me that I hadn't replaced higher end 26er tires in a while. I thought they were officially dead for off-roading. He was tubeless, which helps. The talk of triples dragged that out of my memory.
M
There wasn't a thing called a dropper for decades of mtn biking and people survived just fine. For most of what most of us do, you don't need one. It's just something the marketing guys are pushing to push something new and improved.
M
I’ve had a dropper since 2006, and I was racing XC on it at the time. Sure, you don’t need one but why would you handicap yourself without one?
Tell me your thoughts on e-bikes too
lol about it being a marketing gimmick. You and I don’t do the same kind of riding my friend. I couldn’t imagine not having a dropper on any type of MTB trail. I tried it when I was first riding but wasn’t doing nearly the things I am now.
If I get to a point that I don’t need a dropper then I’m getting one of these…
While I do agree they really aren’t “needed” somehow ya sure learn to love em if ya got em….
The dropper conversion is interesting for sure. I have gone back and forth on them several times on various bikes. For now I have settled on a rigid post, 99% of the time I don’t gain anything with a dropper. I get very specific about my bike setups with the focus on speed and efficiency. I do a lot of back to back testing to determine what is fastest, what is the most comfortable, where any improvements can be made. I have yet to get dropped due to the lack of a dropper & rarely / if ever wish I had one.
With that said I am never more than 1’ - 2’ off the ground, a long travel bike for me is 120mm front and 115mm rear, & 45-50 miles mix of double & single track is a regular ride. Here in Maine it is pretty chunky but there are no the big mountains with sustained decents like out west, same where I race up and down the right coast. It is also not uncommon to have seen me roll up to single track group ride on a CX bike and almost always end up having to wait at trail intersections for all the people who are over biked to catch up. But please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to say that I am anything special or have mad skills. I am very average, I am just used to riding around my saddle when I need to. But that is just me…
With that said I am never more than 1’ - 2’ off the ground, a long travel bike for me is 120mm front and 115mm rear, & 45-50 miles mix of double & single track is a regular ride. Here in Maine it is pretty chunky but there are no the big mountains with sustained decents like out west, same where I race up and down the right coast. It is also not uncommon to have seen me roll up to single track group ride on a CX bike and almost always end up having to wait at trail intersections for all the people who are over biked to catch up. But please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to say that I am anything special or have mad skills. I am very average, I am just used to riding around my saddle when I need to. But that is just me…
I dare you to try it for a while. Lots of us rode for decades before droppers were a thing and did just fine.
I'm with the resident crayon eater and don't run a dropper because **where I ride** it isn't needed. A downhill may take a minute or two before you're climbing the next uphill. I was also taught that it's faster to keep your wheels on the ground and keep pedaling rather than jumping off something, which forms my views of droppers too.
M
I dunno man. Not trying to shade your shine but I don’t personally get it.
CAN you ride without a dropper? But if I can ride just like you with my dropper up but then almost instantly get the seat out of the way to lean the bike, get behind the seat, etc and then also almost instantly go back to a tall seat again. Why wouldn’t I?
I CAN live off beans and rice everyday but I’d prefer steak
CAN you ride without a dropper? But if I can ride just like you with my dropper up but then almost instantly get the seat out of the way to lean the bike, get behind the seat, etc and then also almost instantly go back to a tall seat again. Why wouldn’t I?
I CAN live off beans and rice everyday but I’d prefer steak
Yep I certainly agree with you.....we did just fine without them back in the day. As far as "I dare you to try it for a while" ....that's a hard NO with some of the technical downs around here. I just need that seat completely out of the way to navigate some of the potential "over the bars" sections we ride. I need all the help I can get
I'm getting old. Not saying what's best or pointing fingers, but rather what works best for me and what I enjoy riding.I couldn't disagree more strongly with this comment. A bike without a dropper post is not a mountain bike in the year 2024. 30 years ago, I'm sure the trails looked very different when you were on road bike geometry and 2" wide tires. It would be suicide to ride modern trails on a bike like that, and if you are out there you know that basically nobody is doing it.
I am not joking when I say I would rather ride without shoes than ride mountain without a dropper. And I would certainly rather ride a rigid bike than one without a dropper, especially if it had more modern geometry.
It sounds like you either ride glorified gravel roads or you simply don't know what you're missing because you're used to feeling like you're about to get thrown over the bars all the time.
It sounds like you would really like a gravel bike. I'm not throwing shade on them at all by pointing out that an XC bike without a dropper is really just a gravel bike. In fact I just got a new one because I'm rehabbing after a knee surgery (picture). It came with these grippy XC tires which I've since removed for smooth ones for what I'm using it for, but what you're describing sounds like it'd be far more fun on a 21 pound gravel bike with smooth tires than a 30+ pound mountain bike.
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That was a lot of assumptions. Since I've been riding the same trails off and on since 1987, nothing I've said isn't true.
Here in NoVA there isn't a hill long enough to need a dropper. IF I were going out to Bryce and doing DH stuff I may sing a different song but I'm not. In fact, there isn't anything in/near NoVA that isn't rideable on a rigid bike. AMHIK No, I'm not as fast as I am on a full suspension bike, but that isn't nearly as much fun as riding rigid. Takes skill to ride rigid even remotely quickly. All it takes to ride FS is more balls than brains.
M
I bought this bike new from Dicks sporting goods when I was 16 or 17. I'll be 42 this year. Several sets of tires and now in Texas seems like I ride it 3 times and have to fix a flat tire. I put guards in the tires and that helped a lot.
I have owned several gravel bikes over the years, plus many CX bikes. One thing that I have never owned is a 30 pound mountain bike… My mountain bikes weigh anywhere from 18-21 pounds for the hardtails to 21-23.8 pounds for my full suspension bikes (100mm x 100mm up to 120mm x 120mm). My last gravel bike was just a shade over 16 pounds. All are size large / 58cm and all are weighed with pedals, cages, a proper amount of sealant in the tires, and Garmin mount.
That’s a nice Lynskey, I have owned several. I grew up just south of Chattanooga, where Lynskey is located and not too far from Ooltewah TN where David Lynskey started Litespeed back in the 80’s. I do love a Ti frame…
This is my last gravel bike, S-Works Crux. It weighs 16.2 as pictured without the bottles of course. This was taken on top of Mt Washington after I rode 100 miles from the Atlantic to the practice ride for the Auto Road Hill Climb. I miss calculated how long it would take me to get there. I was an hour early and had to sit in the rain until they let us go up the mountain. Needless to say my legs were not happy about having to sit in the cold rain so I was happy I decided to ride up the mountain with my wife who dropped my ass.
Same bike out fucking around in the mountains
Here is another Crux I had until I broke the frame. I do love these bikes.
Here is a Hakka MX that I beat on for a year or so. It was kinda slow honestly.
Two years ago I had a Lauf Anywhere, but I can't find a picture of it.
This was a very bad ass Santa Cruz Highball I built, it was 21 pounds with a Fox 34 SC 120mm fork. It was a very fast bike.
This was my lightest and probably favorite full suspension I have ever owned. 2022 Santa Cruz Blur CC 100mm. There isn't anything this bike doesn't do short of lift service trails, which I can't think of any reason someone would pass up the opportunity to ride up a hill but whatever I guess... This was a 21.8 pound (as you see it) marathon weapon! Damn I miss it...
Same bike out fucking around in the mountains
Here is another Crux I had until I broke the frame. I do love these bikes.
Here is a Hakka MX that I beat on for a year or so. It was kinda slow honestly.
Two years ago I had a Lauf Anywhere, but I can't find a picture of it.
This was a very bad ass Santa Cruz Highball I built, it was 21 pounds with a Fox 34 SC 120mm fork. It was a very fast bike.
This was my lightest and probably favorite full suspension I have ever owned. 2022 Santa Cruz Blur CC 100mm. There isn't anything this bike doesn't do short of lift service trails, which I can't think of any reason someone would pass up the opportunity to ride up a hill but whatever I guess... This was a 21.8 pound (as you see it) marathon weapon! Damn I miss it...
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A mountain bike that weighs 21 pounds is just a glorified gravel bike. I think you're really missing out on what an actual trail mountain bike has to offer by weight-weenieing. I would not want to ride the Whole-E on anything that is 21 pounds. In fact, I wouldn't want to ride anything that I wouldn't ride a gravel bike on something that could come in at 21 pounds. I would say that those of you who live out west just don't know what it looks like out here but I know that's wrong. Maybe I'm paranoid, but there is nothing a 21 pound "mountain" bike could offer me that would ever interest me. It also looks to me that all of your bikes are too small for you and that aerodynamics have overridden shredding the gnar for you for a long time.
I recommend a season pass to a bike park to remedy these shortcomings.
In the meantime, I'll be riding what you think are mountain bike trails on my gravel bikes.
Different strokes for different folks, nothing wrong with that. I have done the gravity thing, I even raced downhill many years ago (late 90’s - about 2001/2). I was joking a bit when I said that I had never owned a bike that weighed 30 pounds, over the years I built up a few Transitions (a Patrol which I didn’t love and then a Spur with a Fox 36 that road pretty good for what it was). I morphed from riding the lifts up to building a bike that could ride the access roads or preferably trails up between runs, because a full day of only riding down got boring. Of course the bikes I was racing back then were not even comparable to our XC bikes today as far as capability. I have always been drawn to endurance sports, which is why you see me riding what I ride. My bikes are tuned to what I do, same as you. I bet one of your tires weighs as much or more than my MTB wheel set. But that is as important to your style as it is mine. Different horses for different courses my man…
Last time I rode at a ski resort I was on a carbon S-Works with a Mag 21 on it. I wasn't posh enough to afford the Ti lug version... That was 95? 96? No dropper. No discs. Cantilevers.
The rest of my riding has either been in SoCal where you don't really need a mtn bike to have fun or east coast rocks and tree roots.
M
I certainly remember those days.
I took the Scott out yesterday for the first time in two years. I have been working my ass off, and now that I am retired, I want to drop some weight and get active again. I have been walking pretty hard and working out-even doing some light P90X workouts, so I thought I was ready to ride! Wrong! I got my ass so handed to me by trails I used to cruise on. Came home humbled, and a little discouraged. The best part is, I had a “light” crash into a couple trees, and when I got home my wife saw the scrapes on my back and ass and wanted to know what wild woman I had been with instead of riding! Lol. I am not defeated!, but a dose of reality has been dealt to me. Now off to the ski slopes for another dish of reality!
It's like riding a bike. It'll come back with time
If you used to ride a lot, it'll come back quickly. AMHIK
M
We used to say if you ain't crashing, you're not trying hard enough. After enough broken bones and surgeries on the riding group, we now just try and crash softly. LOLOLOLOL!!!
FWIW, getting hurt trying to get more fit will set you back tremendously. I know because I just learned this AGAIN on 8-Dec. I just got my weight back to what it was before 8-Dec but my weight training is still way behind. Still can't sleep on my right shoulder. Slow, steady progress is what I'm chasing now. Sometimes I'll go for a PR on a track I know but not in the rough stuff and definitely not on tracks I'm not familiar with...
I was suggesting that you visit a bike park not to become a DH park rat but rather so that you'd value that help you enjoy the downhill as much as the up. I do endurance sports too. I'm an randonneur. I think you're riding what you ride because you've bought too much into the marketing of weight and you're missing out on all the fun that a modern mountain bike can provide you. Until then, enjoy your gravel roads, but don't miss out on real mountain biking because of weight wienie crap. You don't have to take my word for it, just get out there. It would take 5 minutes to see what you are missing and if you have any love for the sport at all, you will come to appreciate my position.
I do not ride DH bikes as I don't have the balls to use them anyway, so all of my bikes are capable of the whole mountain. That means up and down. It looks like you only care about the up part because that's what may win an XC race, but most of life is just riding, not racing uphill.
My opinion is worth what you paid for it, but you are doing yourself a serious disservice if you're that concerned about weight that you're missing riding the whole mountain. And unless you're superhuman, you are NOT riding the whole mountain on a short reach XC racing bike with no dropper post.
You would literally kill yourself at any modern bike park on something like that. It would be terrifying even on the blue trails.
Interesting take on it & I hear what you are saying. Riding everything is what got me to where I am on bikes, and for sure if I lived in an area where there was substantially more vertical I would more than likely be on a slightly different bike. However I would still chase the lightest setup possible not because of marketing, of which I don’t think is a very large portion of the market, but rather because it’s faster & more efficient.
I am curious what bike you are on currently and what your home trails are / look like.
Indeed.
Been around the block a few times and can still say, nothing beats the joy of a light efficient bike.
When I was investigating a new bike and watching the weight pretty closely, my wife wanted to know why I was spending another $1000 to save five lbs of weight. Her logic was for me just to loose the five lbs and save a grand. You gotta love em, or you will just shoot them.
There are 12 bikes in my household between my wife and I. The closest thing I have to a cross country bike is a Surly Karate Monkey. My main mountain bike is an Evil Insurgent LB, it's probably posted on this forum somewhere. I don't think it's the end-all and be-all, but I stand behind my comments that I would never be on any mountain trail anywhere on a bicycle without a dropper seatpost; even my fat bike has one.
Weight is a tiny and minor factor in efficiency. Suspension design and tire selection makes a much larger difference. The marketing would have you believe weight is a far bigger factor than it is. I can only suspect that you're missing out on the last 10+ years of technological changes (long, low, slack, and dropper) because you're overly concerned with it. Because in the big picture, weight pretty much does not matter at all.
I have ridden throughout Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. In Fruita I'd ride an XC bike (but with a dropper) if I had one. Everywhere else, at least a 130/120 bike would be my absolute minimum. At the bike park I like an All Mountain/Enduro bike over a DH bike. My bike is 160/151, but it was somewhat bought on an impulse; my wife rides a 130/130 trail bike and she keeps up just fine. I have ridden Hiline, the Monarch Crest, and the Whole Enchilada on my Evil since I've had it, just to name a few.
Eh, run what you like, on your bike, that you paid for. We all have different needs, for different trails. That being said, I don't own a MTB without a dropper post on it. Hell, I'd put one on my road/gravel bike if I still rode it.
My neighbor was clucking away on my seat height being way too low for my height and then I hit the dropper lever. Priceless look on his know-it-all face...
I see folks on e-bikes quite often on the Fruita/ GJ trails where they are technically not supposed to be, but they are building more and more e-bike friendly trails. Typically it’s an older man and wife getting out where they would never be able to go without an e-bike so I applaud them for that.
I’m perfectly happy with my 32 pound mid travel 29er!!!! (with a dropper)
Sounds like we all need a meetup in Bville. You can bring your gravel bikes, xc bikes, down country bikes, mtn bikes and e-bikes. With or without a dropper and we’ll test them all then go have a beer and a laugh
I hope to make it back there in May; it's great if you like flow trails. I'm currently rehabbing a knee injury and looking forward to being able to shred the gnar again.
The trails I'm familiar with in Colorado generally do not allow motor vehicles; the exception I can think of is the first half of the Monarch Crest, which does allow motor vehicles, even motorcycles.
Sounds great! Hopefully in a few months
I think my hardtail probably weighs 30lbs at least. Chromag. I bet I could ride it after I run over it though
I'll be out there sometime this spring!
I spend a couple months every winter boondocking in the AZ desert. Currently south of Ajo and have been riding 15-20 miles every day exploring. There’s not a lot of single track trails down here but I’ve been making do on the myriad of two-tracks that criss-cross the desert.
Back home I typically ride a e-bike due to all the climbing I do, but two months on the road in a van conversion I was worried about being able to keep the bike charged so I brought my hard tail (aka amish bike).
The hard tail is 20-ish lbs lighter and doesn’t have as much suspension travel but it does have a dropper seat. The kind of riding I’m doing is more akin to XC though some of the dry washes have been eroded a fair amount which makes it somewhat technical and fun. Coming from the e-bike it took a few rides to get my amish-legs back.
Back home I typically ride a e-bike due to all the climbing I do, but two months on the road in a van conversion I was worried about being able to keep the bike charged so I brought my hard tail (aka amish bike).
The hard tail is 20-ish lbs lighter and doesn’t have as much suspension travel but it does have a dropper seat. The kind of riding I’m doing is more akin to XC though some of the dry washes have been eroded a fair amount which makes it somewhat technical and fun. Coming from the e-bike it took a few rides to get my amish-legs back.
Wow that Monarch Crest ride looks amazing. I just watched a video about a ride some guys did and one of them suffered a pedal stem breaking off halfway through the ride. That would suck.
