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Yep, a part of "flickability" is getting weight on the rear easily and higher bars help with that.
We have to remember though that flickability doesn't exist. Sean said so. He has an important opinion here even though he can't actually understand what it even means.
I'm just wondering how long it will take us to get to a consensus that what you do to the bike and how you do it is very much connected to how comfortable and confident you are on the bike which will mean different people will handle different geometries differently. I'm sure there are people that will find long chainstays more flickable than short because they will just gel with the bike and ride it more aggressively.
“It's easier to push in and overwhelm just the rear tire,” I assumed you were talking about shralping here?
I love how angry people on this website get when I challenge assumptions. You’re frustrated because you can’t explain flickable. You’re befuddled because we have never even had to define that term in the MTB world before: we have all just taken it for granted.
Look, it’s ok to like short chainstays. You have adapted your riding to them. But you don’t need to be angry at people looking to improve/refine mountain bikes through lengthening the rear centers. Most of us just want proportional CSs not LONG CHAINSTAYS so don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll still be able to have fun.
On a slightly different note, I don’t know how many people have had the chance to ride two completely different chainstay lengths on the exact same bike. A lot of detractors have had a bad experience with longer CS bikes but there are enough other variables that it’s hard to know what the real culprit is.
I’ve had a chance to rue the same frame with two chanstay lengths using +0 and +10 dropouts on my kavenz.
The longer chain stay provides more front end grip more consistently and allows me to ride taller and further back behind the bars effectively increasing my “functional” reach on the bike. That said it takes more effort to load the rear and slide the rear around tighter turns. You can but takes a it more body english to do so and equally rewarding when you do. Fun in rough, technical sections and linking corners when you’re trying to carry speed.
On shorter chainstay, it’s like the latency is lower. It’ll respond quicker to your inputs but I also need to ride more aggressively over the front and i got the overall sensation that my bike and cockpit felt more crammed. Fun in steeps though which is where the setup shines.
What do you mean by the latency is lower
He means that it’s faster to respond to inputs from your hands and body, which can also mean more twitchy vs stable in some aspects, which is analogous to the steeper vs slacker head tube angle comparison. There are pros and cons of both sides depending on how/what/where you ride.
People get angry with you because you ignore other people's opinions.
Go watch moimoi test the frameworks enduro bike, discover it's less flickable than he expects, then discover later on that the chainstay is long and that's what he was feeling.
It has always meant something that's less stable, more dynamic, more bmxy, and it's weird AF to pretend that those qualities in a bike don't exist or that you can't attribute a lot of that behaviour to a shorter stay.
I'm curious as to what would give more "flickable" feel? A smaller rear wheel or a shorter stay?
“Flickable means it’s flickable” cmon man. You aren’t defining any of those terms. Less stable how? Qualify “more dynamic” please. What does more bmx-y mean?
All I can figure is that people’s muscle memory for the balance point is adapted for short wheelbase and short chainstay bikes. You can easily adapt your technique to a different wheelbase to get your weight where it needs to be to create the same lighter front end, especially when we raise the stack (and probably shorten the reach a bit?)
Not agreeing with you doesn’t mean I’m disregarding your opinion, it means I do not find sufficient evidence to agree with it. I’m still waiting for someone to describe what the flicking is that flickable seems to allude to…
I like riding fast and I think this “flicking” might be happening to slower speed riders who like to “steer” the front of the bike around turns rather than properly carving. Moi Moi even said that’s where the long cs shines is fast rough trails. I guess the unstable flicking only works for slow guys and gals
I bought a nicolai g1 in 2020. Initially ran it with 443mm chainstays. It's a size large with 515mm reach. The front end felt very light and little feel unless I was going down steep stuff. Increased to 453mm, then 462mm and now 474mm. The bike feels much better now with the longer chainstays. Less wheeling uphill, easier to drift/slide the backend and way more drip on the front on flat corners. I'd like to try even longer chainstays but that isn't currently an option.
The fact that this has to be explained in this thread is embarrassing.
Sean is going to need you to describe and define "embarrassing", he's not convinced that it exists.
I am not embarrassed for asking a question. This word is thrown around constantly and still, no one has quantified it. And DEFINITELY no one has explained how flickable is inherent to short chainstays and impossible to achieve on long chainstays. I also don’t care what a rider who has had 10 years of adapting to short chainstays says about long chainstays after one ride. We are looking for real comprehensive data here.
Remembering the flex stay topic...
I’m worried sspomer is going to lock this thread. I’ll just stop posting.
Dammit, I didn't want to write this much but then I got typing and it all happened.
Data:
Take a 20lb dumbbell and hold it with one arm near your body. Move it up and down, left and right, rotate clockwise and counterclockwise.
Now take that same 20lb dumbbell in that same one arm but hold it out all the way extended from your body. Move it up and down, left and right, rotate clockwise and counterclockwise.
Which is easier to do?
The length of the lever matters. It doesn't make things impossible but it makes things harder. The same arm has different difficulties manipulating a weight at the end of the arm (a lever) depending on the length of the lever.
End of Data.
Putting that data into practice:
Imagine that dumbbell were a spinning bike wheel at the end of a lever (the chainstays) and that wheel was demonstrating gyroscopic stabilization effects from spinning. Do you think that gyroscopic effect multiplies the difficulty in manipulating the orientation of that wheel?
I'll be honest, I don't have much experience doing tests of this topic on mtb. But I did it a ton of times on a bmx bike where the chainstay is shorter (less effect than on a mtb) and the gyroscopic effect is less because the wheel is smaller (even less effect than a mtb). Scaling it up to mtb sizes, a person could expect to see stronger forces exerted on the lever by the weight. Basic physics doesn't care about front center to rear center ratio.
On a bmx bike, the dropouts are slots that can allow for multiple axle positions based on how long their chain is. Further, a rider can tweak where that axle is by using a half-link chain (making smaller adjustments of axle position possible) and differing sizes of sprockets (chainrings) to make even smaller adjustments to the axle's position in the dropouts. I did ALL of those things many times. Enough times that I sometimes forgot which setup was on my bike at which time. But I always knew what the setup was when I rode the bike.
To put it succinctly the shorter chainstay setups allowed for the bike chassis to be more easily manipulated. "Flickable" is a nothing word that has been used to describe the ease of manipulation. Able to be flicked, I guess. Perhaps "flick" is the word some folks used to describe manipulations of the bike chassis? I don't know the etymology, but that's what I understood what they meant. A person could tease it out from context clues to understand what is meant if they weren't being intentionally obtuse.
A shorter back end on a bmx bike made for easier bike rotations like 180s/360s/540s because the center of gravity was closer to the pivot point on the back wheel (the rotation starts around the back wheel). A shorter back end also made the rider's leverage on the handlebars more effective: pulling for a hop or a manual or some other bike manipulation needed less effort to get the same result as I'd get with the longer back end. All sorts of bike chassis manipulations - tricks like tabletops, turndowns, and tailwhips - were easier with a shorter rear end. Again, the gyroscopic forces were closer to the rider's center of gravity. The length of the lever matters. Also tricks that required hopping off a balance point were easier because the balance point was more manipulable. Carving around a tight bowl was easier. Carrying speed around a more reasonably-transitioned bowl was harder.
A longer back end on a bmx bike made for more stability on ground and in the air. Tricks like no handers, no footers, nothings, cancans, barspins, grinds down rails/ledges were all helped by the additional stability. The bike wanted to stay stable. Manualing or nose wheelieing after being launched out of a ramp was easier because the longer lever resisted twitchy chassis changes and you didn't have to pull up to the balance point (you were put there as you came out of the ramp). Nosing in to a steep landing was harder with a long back end because the bike chassis was less manipulable with the longer chainstay. A high-speed huck was easier because the bike's longer chainstay helped you stay stable. You could generate more speed from pumping on a single roller or landing but multiple rollers in a row was more difficult and the timing needed more precision.
Here's the kicker: ALL of those positives and negatives could be overcome by shifting weight while riding or spending more time with certain skills rather than others. A short chainstay might make tailwhips a little easier at first because the bike is a little easier to spin...but if I only do 1 of those per year I'll be worse at them than if I do 30 a year on a long-chainstay bike. If I'm flexible enough in my hips and strong enough in my glutes to where I can hinge slightly deeper which will weight my front end while cornering a short-chainstay bike, then I don't need the more central weight bias with a more upright stance a long chainstay would encourage...especially if I'm looking to be aerodynamic during a longer, smoother corner!
At the end of the day, different folks like to ride different ways. For some folks, that means a short chainstay gives them the amount of stability they want while making for a bike chassis that is manipulable with the ease they consciously or unconsciously desire. Other folks prefer - consciously or unconsciously - a chainstay that lends itself to increased stability. These characteristics are all intermingled with the melange of other setup and part choices that can all have varying effects over those same sorts of characteristics...and that's all playing second fiddle to the changes in weight distribution of different bodies. A person carrying their weight low in their body will be able to pull into a manual easier than a person carrying their weight high in their body if everything else is identical. What chainstay length should they run?
There is no one answer. There is no one way to ride. There is no one best setup. It's all shades of grey and some people prefer one shade while others prefer another.
A huge nothing burger and you had to be a jerk at the same time? “ALL of those positives and negatives could be overcome by shifting weight while riding or spending more time with certain skills rather than others.” so it will just feel less flickable until you adjust your balance point and weight distribution? So Flickable is just riding in harmony with the bikes natural balance points?
over on bikepacking.com people are arguing about long versus short chain stays. they say that short chain stays make the bike accelerate faster. This is absolutely stupid. What is probably happening is that short chain stays exaggerate the feeling of the front and lifting when you apply power to the cranks. We associate front wheel lifting with acceleration and so we assume that because short chain bikes have more front wheel lift that they must be accelerating faster, but if you understand how physics work you’ll know that changing a chain stay length won’t change acceleration.
What I’m trying to say is that we have a lot of misconceptions and assumptions about how bikes work and some of them are right and some of them are wrong. I went through arguments with people for close to a decade about tire sizes for gravel bikes, and road bikes and people were as upset as you guys were with me, but guess who was right and who was wrong?
rude people on Internet forums have argued against every single innovation that has helped our sport. One of the ways that we innovate is by questioning our assumptions and double checking our math. This whole flickable thing is just too vague and undefined for my taste and I think it is the crux of what is holding us back from designing bikes that can be ridden hard as fuck and still give the rider ultimate control. The flickable thing is just too vague and undefined for my taste and I think it is the of what is holding us back from designing bikes that can be ridden hard as fuck and still give the rider ultimate control.
I am pretty much the exact opposite of an engineer and got pretty lost in the weeds on plenty of the discussion here but still felt frustrated with all of the confusion on short chainstays and “flickability” enough to stop lurking and join in. I’m another person who comes with some experience in BMX.
I liked your answer and borderline think the problem is that a lot of people on this thread seem to be approaching things like a math professor as opposed to someone who has ever bunnyhopped on a bike. I have trouble keeping up with some of these threads as they start feeling like dissertations and attempts for people to show off their engineering prowess.
Honestly all of the discussions about long chainstays makes me really want to see what they’re about but this isn’t a binary, both options should exist and both are relevant. Short stays aren’t anachronistic, they’re just for a different style of rider; one who likes a more maneuverable bike that can change direction more easily and doesn’t feel stuck to the ground. Clearly it’s not for everyone, as plenty of people in this thread have demonstrated, but there’s a place for both.
Saying that all chainstays need to be long, or long stays are the future is like telling a skater that longboards are the sole truth. A longboard is the tool for the job if your main aim is to do is carve, go fast, and stay planted, but if your aim is to pop around and jib, you’re going to pick the skateboard every time. Same thing applies here. A shorter stay allows you to lift that front end easier for hopping and manualing and makes the back end easier to whip around, which is desirable if you’re interested in playing more than plowing.
video of seanfisseli riding when? I want to see how absolutely fucking fast and shreddy he gets to prove his superior opinion.
Absolute hubris.
Well the last page and a half of this thread definitely has the "and bitching about it" part covered 😎
but why do you want your enduro bike to behave like a bmx bike? i thought we have these “jibb“ bikes for that?
He answered that in his post. Everyone favors different characteristics in a bike. Everyone on this forum loves to talk about how tall people need have particular needs on a bike, well certain riders and riding styles have different needs as well. One of the great things in BMX is that most companies offer different frames that can meet the needs of these different styles. A lot of street riders prefer steeper bikes with shorter back ends, as it makes the bike easier to manipulate, while a lot of jump/trails riders prefer a slacker head tube and a longer back end for stability in the air (as he mentions). As he also says, both have their place, as they should in mountain bikes as well. DontWorryImAPilot I feel like pretty thoroughly explained most aspects of this in his post. To the point where I’d largely just be rehashing what he’s said. I feel like if you’re still caught up in arguing the semantics of flickable (which he goes into pretty thoroughly as well) or or asking why someone would want this, then I think you’re caught in a binary thought spiral, as I’d argue that his post alone addresses all of this.
Tongue in cheek brotha. This happened in the flex stay thread too (RIP) no one has a sense of humor when talking about such serious topics such as “chainstays.”
The mention of BMX reminded me of something I'd noticed back in my race days... Bottom bracket height also can make a noticeable change in the feel of a bike.. A lower bb usually felt more planted in the turns whereas the higher bb helped with a quicker turn in..
Theory: Bringing up the bb and a change in HT length to keep the stack consistent could also give a slightly more nimble feeling?
This is exactly what I was trying to get at when asking what people by “flickable.” I wasn’t being obtuse, I’m trying to figure out if the sensations they are talking about can be emphasized with other geo changes… maybe longer stays give us wiggle room to increase bb height?
Also on Moi Mois vid he was riding the large but mentioned that he like flickable bikes but but maybe he could ride the medium to get back that nimble feeling? I dunno I think we are all still in the experimentation phase still!
We don't. That's why I'm saying it's not all one answer.
The BMX bike was simply a comparative analog that comes from my experience. I'm not doing tailwhips on my trailbike but I can also feel that same ease-of-maneuverability when jumping a hip or nosing into a steep corner. I'm not doing no-footed cancans on my trailbike but I can feel the additional stability when I gap into a berm.
We live in the shades of grey. It is all compromise.
We are really living up to the "bitching about it" part in the thread name haha
I feel like my intelligence is best applied elsewhere. I am turning off notifications for this thread see y’all later!
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