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If Team Robot had a bat signal, this would be it.
After a bit of a rocky start (heh), the new thread has a higher class of tangents and derails. I like that.
I would agree with that as I have owned 3 enduro's, 1 SX Trail, and a status over the years. Somehow never had a stumpy.
I now have a Torque and a Bullit. 170 is the sweet spot IMO.
170 with a single crown is a heck of a lot of fun, but it’s no dh 200 with a dual crown.
Rode my Hightower V2 three seasons in the bike park. Had a great time. Keep hearing “there’s nothing like riding a downhill bike”.
I believed the hype and bought a V10.8 in 2024.
They were right.
Same ATC keeping the same front front wheel will give same results. It's replacing the wheel to go with the fork where crown to ground matters.
At least the way I understood it is that the 26" wheel is staying.
As for Frenchies and trail bikes, not sure it applies to them as well, but there are people calling any bike that's meant to be pedalled uphill an XC bike.
Meanwhile I'm currently using my 170/160 bike as an XC bike because the hardtail isn't in running order lol.
With reasonable tires (schwalbe super trail casing) and a weight conscious build (2kg Lyrik, 2kg wheelset), I honestly dont see much of a difference with the 150/135mm bike it replaced when it comes to climbing/flat stuff.
I'd get a dedicated DH if I lived anywhere near a mountain range/bikepark, but for a day of bikepark per year this'll do.
Me going between this thread and the OG Tech Rumors and Innovation thread...
Posting this here I suppose??
Looks like a new/updated ohlins rear shock, as well as a different airspring top cap on the updated fork.
So far it feels like the old thread is the tech rumours thread and this one is tech rumours shitposting (which I am here for).
I suspect that'll change whenever the lock itself comes. Kudos to those trying to post serious discussion in the new thread so far!
I don't want to spawn a discussion on geo and rear center that belongs on the dedicated thread, but on the subject of huge enduro bikes being ridden on trails that don't call for them:
I'm nearing 50, just had my A/C joint reconstructed from being separated too many times, and am shopping for an aggressive XC bike to help me transform my riding by making some wee turns to "how gnarly" and "how far, how fast" dials.
I'm deep in geometry-spreadsheet land. Recognizing that they're interrelated and it's not quite this simple, I've been surprised by the impact of HTA (and travel) versus the reach on front center and thereby FC/RC ratio. It's quite easy for a ~475 reach, 130ish bike with a ~66 HTA angle to sit at ~1.8 FC/RC with measly 435 chainstays. Meanwhile, for example, my large Madonna v3 with 480 reach and in the 445 chainstay position is pushing 1.9, and taking the chainstays to 450 only gets it to ~1.85.
It's made me wonder what percentage of complaints about not being able to weight the front wheel and FC/RC rations are because people are so overbiked for the trails they are actually riding. I realize long rear centers do more than just that and make a ton of sense in many situations for many reasons. But whenever I buy a new 130-150 travel bike, I'll be paying much closer attention to just how slack of a HTA and travel I actually need for the trails on which I'll ride that bike. I won't be asking that bike to pull Madonna duties. I think being reasonable about both of those will let me get a better FC/RC ratio while retaining chainstay length and wheel base will be more nimble and playful.
* Edit: Before anyone calls me out on it, I realize the stack of the Madonna factors into those numbers. But you can run them with lower stack and the point still stands. School me over on the geo, rear center, etc. thread so we don't derail this thread and get into even further trouble.
Short stays are fine in more compact, nimbler bikes. You cannot really ride a smaller bike the same as a long travel one, regardless of geometry or tire selection/setup. Is not neccesarily about terrain, but how you attack it, so it makes sense if the whole package is coherent (cohesive?)
I haven’t thought about the relationship between not being able to weight the front and being over biked, however, I do think there’s a relationship between fc/rc ratios and reach.
I think that as fc/rc approaches 2, the reach needs to increase to accommodate the rider’s balance.
I replaced a Spesh Enduro with a Madonna. Previously had (skill) issues with the Enduro and weighting the front. Recently put a 50mm stem on top of a 20mm spacer with some 65mm rise handlebars and dusted off the Enduro for old times sake. Transformed the bike for me – riding it felt telepathic on Phoenix’s steeper trails.
I do think, as someone elsewhere has mentioned, there is a distinctly different riding style between low and high fc/rc ratio bikes. And different ratios make more sense for different kinds of riding.
I think this is also why we will continue to see long and short chain stay bikes where not every company is trying to build a 1.83 ratio bike or whatever is contemporary.
To go with your last point, companies should build different bikes as not every rider is looking for the same feel and handling from a bike.
You guysssssss: https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/modern-geo-talk-chainstays-stack-re…
Sorry to add to the derail, but you would solve a too long front part of the bike problem by... Making it even longer and even more out of balance?
I mean it works. If you can handle being slung over the bars and doing a lot of the riding through your arms. If you're not 200% committed, it's not gonna work.
It's not out of balance nor is it too long - changing the bar position does nothing to the fc/rc ratio. The bars were too low and close to my hips with a typical Enduro setup for me to effectively weight the bike while riding. Extending the effective reach and raising the bar height put me in a position to more comfortably weight the bike how I need in order to ride it intuitively, for my body geo.
Talk is cheap, go out and try it on a high fc/rc ratio bike. Heads up, all high ratio bikes require more riding with your arms.
I was aiming at this part specifically:
"I think that as fc/rc approaches 2, the reach needs to increase to accommodate the rider’s balance."
On the face of it it says "make a long bike longer", frame wise. I didn't read it as specific for your case to change the reach by moving the bars.
Sure riding over the front is better on a bike like that. I said it works. You just need to be committed. And that's a mentality thing. You can't just say to someone "go ahead and try it". I moved to a smaller frame to shorten the reach from the old bike precisely because I can not ride over the bars.
On the other hand raising them helped me a lot.
Plus to ride over the front, I'd say bringing the bars a bit closer will work better than moving it farther away. You need to take into account the mental effects and what the rider does versus just moving the touch point. The end game is loading the front. Flexed arms will give you more power to weight the front than stretched out arms. And more finess. Thus why bringing the bars closer might have a more positive effect.
But, we are derailing, I explained all of this before in the geometry thread, etc. etc.
Atherton just announced an e-bike will be released in 2026. Doing a three part series talking about development, but no pics released yet.
They're really going after their core demographic now, hah !
Makes a lot of sense with the knowledge from the dh project chasing the Gates belt money. I’m guessing Avinox v2 based on the battery hype in the first video and the “release” date.
Can confirm running a Bronson Cascade link on the V4 Hightower is working great fwiw
Coil Spring and a simple damper (compression & rebound), weight should be similar to the podium even though it’s coil.
The stock links are identical between the two bikes so this was suppose to work all along. Hence the part numbers are BH-xxxx. Only just got around to verifying clearance recently though. But yeah exact same changes for the Hightower as with the Bronson. Glad you like it!
Something new from EXT?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSzgCZYjzTX/?igsh=MXZ0M214YzlrdnQ5dA==
Anyone care to speculate what's going on w/ that arch? From pics it looks like their existing forks all have the standard zigzag bracing in there...
The Tillamook state forest trail system has some of the rougher trails for the Portland area, other than that the Dallas trails (not blackrock) I’ve heard are pretty gnarly.
Kinda looks like something could be screwed (and/or glued) into the arch from behind to make a box section to make it stiffer. Not easy, but could potentially be done.
Those 2 bigger holes in the crown look like they are connected to the lowers so might be some sort of bleeder valve.
Their current lowers are made by SR Suntour, but I can't guess as to why there is not bracing on these ones. I'd guess they're just mockups to finalise and check dimensions. The 4 smaller holes (vertical in the pic) are probably just for mounting a mudguard.
OK, but what and why?
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