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To people saying that a bike would come too long with your prefered reach if you went with balanced front to rear ratio, you are in my opinion looking at it from wrong angle. Reach is like the fifth most (least?) important geometry number. One should always firstly look at wheelbase, followed by f/r center ratio, headangle, bb drop and then stack and reach because they are kinda intertwined (higher stack shorter reach for given wheelbase and vice versa). Also balanced front to rear ratio is not the same for different sizes and different riding styles as some have already...

You were probably eagerly waiting for another company to step up and enter the pedal/stem/bar market, here you go (some sarcasm detected): https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/leatt-enters-components-cat….

we all know that bike-body system dynamics are complicated and heavily coupled in a myriad of ways, and that there are major simplifications that need to be made to compare geometry meaningfully (flat ground, static or at sag, rider in attack position, etc). sure, foot position and suspension design & setup affect F/R bias. but if we don't take an "all else equal" approach to talking about geometry, why even bother? I generally don't think these assumptions invalidate the discussion, and I'm happy to live with the reality that the conclusions I might draw from reading people's thoughts on this...

People will come on here debating f/r ratios and best cs lengths, reach etc without talking at all about cleat / foot position. The preference that a rider has for a particular foot position hugely affects f/r weighting. And two riders on the same bike with the same proportions will have very different experiences if they run 5mm different cleat positions.

I think this is a pretty interesting point, although dynamic ride height is very challenging to discuss/compare without some numbers from a DAQ system, because like you said SAG doesn’t give the full picture. I remember discussing this to some extent with Craig at Avalanche Suspension when working through my fork tune. He commented on the fact that he would be aiming for 25% static sag, but dynamically it would ride higher than I was use to, and recommended against bumping up my fork travel an extra 10mm (as I wanted to) until I’d tried the setup first, for fear...

Banshee Titan frames are going for cheap right now, a large gets you to a 1.77 ratio with the long dropouts. Maybe worth trying for someone really wanting to experiment. Seatpost insertion isn't great, but that's my only complaint with mine

Yeah the weight bias will be more forward with a softer fork and stiffer rear but wouldn’t that be because the stiffer rear pushes you up and forward and the softer fork pulls you back down and forwards? Personally I’m not a fan of tuning suspension to achieve a certain weight bias and I’d rather have it setup for the terrain and pitch as the former seems to lead to an unbalanced feel.

"Weighting feet is moving centre of gravity" Huh? Even dynamically stem length doesn't affect how your feet distribute weight through the tyres, yes you can take weight off your feet, but that doesn't change the split of F/R distribution from your feet, just the total loading at the F/R tyres. Everyone is discussing static weight bias on flat ground, for obvious simplification purposes, its too complex to break down multiple different bikes, at sag, with different stack heights etc etc.

stem length doesn't affect weight bias, only the ability to weight your hands, which isn't the weight bias everyone is talking about, were discussing the distribution of weight from the feet through the BB to front and rear wheels.

The mix match is rad! Glad you were able to dial in your ride a bit further! My trail bike I believe is 1.84 and DH 1.85. I do agree that they are enjoyable to ride but it does leave me wondering after these awesome changes from Bronson and V10.6... that stretching the rear more is a better ride at least for me. That makes me really want to try something even closer to 1.8 even into the 1.7s if possible. It's an exciting thought! Ive been considering mating a XL rear to L front Raaw Madonna V3 for a...

I can see that. It’s counterintuitive to me, but I think the longer rear end is helping me jump higher too. Maybe just a new bike placebo effect though. What does bother me is the inconsistency between manufacturers sizing recommendations. I found this between the specialized enduro and the spire- very very similar geometry, but different size range recommendations

Long time lurker figured I’d chip in. For me at least personally the reason I tend to prefer a longer rear centre as without body position adjustment there is more weight on the front wheel. This lets me stand on my feet more in a neutral position without having to get so far forward to get traction on the front wheel and since there is less weight on the back wheel, it is easier to step the back out in turns. That, coupled with more weight on the front wheel makes cornering feel easier for me and is the benefit...

What about chainstay girth? Too far?

haha you are right and I am sorry, I didn't mean to derail the thread so much. All I really wanted to do was defend Enduro as I agree with a lot that has been said above, it's mainly a perception issue, so I am trying to shift perception and bring some positivity into the discipline. That was the reason for the Jack/Sram comment and trying to make it less about Sram pulling Enduro funding, and also the Chris Ball comment, which did not go over well, but that one I'll accept and I will keep trying with him. I'll...

I've tried to stay out of this one in general because I'm far from knowledgeable on the subject but here goes. Okay, so expressing doubt isn't claiming to know better. Meanwhile, none of the comments attacking that doubt have added any useful detail or information to the discussion, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority. Hopefully this will be my last "well ackshually" post on this matter, but you never know!