Hey all, just wanted to get some thoughts on body position related to bike size. At only 5ft 5” I’m on the short side but the last few years I had been riding medium Santa Cruz megatowers (v1 and v2) with a reach in the 550mm ish range. I got along good with those bikes but always felt like a bike that size was probably too big for someone as short as me, last year I had a warranty issue and decided to try a Nomad in size small as I do prefer tighter technical trails and thought I would give it a go.
It’s a bike I can ride fast (for my ability) but I notice to get the best from it I really have to drive my hips back (almost in an exaggerated way) and try and make space between myself and the handlebars, which got me thinking what is it I’m trying to do by riding like that. Is it the handlebar is too close to me to get that nice elbows out and slightly bent stance. On this bike for whatever reason I feel like get caught over the front on the exit of a turn and it feels like I’m riding the front wheel out of the turn.
I guess I should explain where I’m going with this, the nomad frame has cracked and thanks to the lovely Santa Cruz warranty I’m getting a new one but I change change the size if I wish (I’ve been on the Santa Cruz warranty train since my v1 megatower), I’m trying to figure out if going back to a medium would make the body position a bit more natural or if I’m just being a bike nerd! I have been riding for 30 odd years and so tend to nerd out hard on stuff like this the older I get.
Any input from people with similar experience and nerdy thoughts would be great!
IMO you're experiencing some dynamic riding where you can move your body around to Change the CG, Something that is a feature of Shorter Rear centre bikes(assuming reach is sensible) - we often refer to this as being playful and fun(what MTB is all about) - This also allows you more room to get behind the bars for steeps, which You have to do dynamically vs a longer reach bike of it happening more naturally. The smaller geo will allow you to whip around corners and wont be as lazy in tight stuff.
These Sizes or bike geo is suited to MOST riding conditions.
When you upsize you are extending your body, this limits the amount of weight you can move around but this adds more stability as the bike is longer and you cant get knocked around altering the CG.
These bikes are great for Big Mountain stuff where as such you'd see much higher average speed and Alp's Style riding but Obviously has its downsides such as not as easy to manipulate around tighter Trails and corners - This also drains more energy having to leverage the bigger bike.
The above is just looking at general geo and doesnt include things like stem length and bars etc.
There's currently a few loud minority About longer rear centres but these bikes are often quite dull to Ride and have alot of traits of the 'bigger bike'
Theres also quite a few suspension changes that have to happen for these bikes as leverage is often Quite high, can also feel like your getting pulled backwards or getting 'hung up' on big hits.
- This will get heavily questioned but thats just how those bikes are - I call them the lazy Riders bike as can feel like the bike does alot of the riding for you.
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