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Hey. That slack seat tube is fine if you ride a medium. It’s your fault for not being a shorter model bot.

By predictable I mean that the OTB line from your center of gravity to the front tire contact patch maintains the same slope as you brake, which doesn't force you to make last second position shifts to keep from overweighting the front end. I'm not saying that any of this really makes a bike unreadable. I've had bikes of every suspension design out there and I've managed. I ride over the bars and I like my fork stiff on any bike. A good rider will adapt to one or the other and just go about his business. All I'm saying...

Great questions- seems like you'd be on Team Hart. Danny was probably chasing those exact suspension attributes with his floating brake arm. When talking about brake squat, "stable" implies a fixed center of mass, which isn't a realistic assumption. Riders can move all around, and what you're suggesting is that a rider whose suspension isn't getting stiff then supple then stiff again from braking will be better able to shift weight to compensate for braking-induced mass shift. Fair point, and maybe you're right. I'd love to know what Danny and the Saracen team observed in their year of testing the...

Just6979, you perfectly described why the world’s fastest riders ride forks that are basically locked out, but still ride 30-40% rear sag like the rest of us. It’s not just that they like stiff suspension. Pros hate uncontrolled weight shift, but they love a loaded-up front tire that’s gripping when they brake.

I think you've accurately described the difference in ride feel between long and short bikes, but I don't think a 2017 bike is 2.5'' shorter in reach. That would mean a medium that's 460mm in 2021 would have been 397mm in 2017. That's not realistic. For instance, a large 2021 Santa Cruz Bronson has a 14mm longer reach than a 2017, with a front center that's 32mm longer. So it's better, but not mind-blowing.

I would say you are feeling brake squat limiting suspension movement, but its not jacking it up, it's doing the opposite and pushing it into the travel under braking. The effect is like slightly firming the spring and slowing the rebound on a bike which generates a lot of squat while the brakes are on (I think). The positive trade off (at least on paper) is it should help to combat fork dive a bit. As others have pointed out, various people have won many DH world cups and Ews overalls on bikes which have large amounts of this trait...

Then you would be wrong, in more than one ways. As excellently explained by Lord 🤖. What your feeling is brake squat. Also, your suspension doesn't stop moving, but it gets more compressed compared to if you were not dragging the brake, as if you were running a stiffer spring. Fun fact, when Fabien Barrel rode for kona he ran the brake link reversed, to get more brake squat for steeper tracks.