Geometry & Numbers

The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Weight balance plays a part as much as overall weight. I gave my bike a bit of a makeover a few years ago, which took about 700g out of it, but more crucially, most of that came of the front of the bike - around 400g just in the fork, and a bit more in the bar & stem. The result was it made the bike easier to pop up techy climbs (I still suck at them, but the bike tweak helped me suck a bit less), and on the odd occasions I do little jumps, it flies a bit better too.

A bit down the track I bought a carbon version of the same series, and although it's around 1kg lighter than the aluminium one, the fork is about 200g heavier, and I can feel the effect on the balance of the bike.
 

Paulie_AU

Likes Dirt
My current bike is carbon. Looking to get alloy bike next chasing better geo. Not really worried about weight.

Interestingly I ran a tape over my trance and roadie and the centre of BB to bar measurement is within a mm or two. Roadie runs shorter cranks thinking of dropping to 170mm cranks on my mtb.
 

SummitFever

Eats Squid
I think the geometry makes a bigger difference for riders who sit IN their bikes rather than moving over and around their bikes. If you pretty much maintain the same riding position up hill and down dale then you'll need much more help from the layout of the bike. Once you start really moving your body around than the geo figures have less influence.
 

link1896

Mr Greenfield
I think the geometry makes a bigger difference for riders who sit IN their bikes rather than moving over and around their bikes. If you pretty much maintain the same riding position up hill and down dale then you'll need much more help from the layout of the bike. Once you start really moving your body around than the geo figures have less influence.
I only really noticed this after I amassed a collection of bikes with vastly different characteristics and had to wildly change my style to stop smashing all of them.

Going from a 71 degree HA epic to a glory with 63.5 degree HA on the same day and it was hard to not to smash my brains out on the glory until I radically changed my style. To me, a steep HA cross country bike on super twisty single track is still a thing of beauty, you just need cat like reflexes. I subscribe to one bike cannot do it all.
 

climberman

Likes Dirt
If you have time ... Worth a watch, it's a little nerdy but meh.

Really answered a few questions for me ... Look at the bits about trail vs stem length vs hand position ... And long front + short rear vs centred re: cornering.

I've ridden Stromlo several times in the past. but never could rail the corners on luge as an eg. Always found my front washing out on bikes I had thought were fairly slack. Always blamed it on the loose over hard trail surface.

But my last trip on long/ low / slack really blew my mind.

The bit about stem length and having the hands behind the trail ... The bit about being centred and having the pivot point around me as opposed to being in front. All makes sense now. All my bikes previously had 70mm stems and relatively short stays.

I don't think it's so much the slackness any more as my Pole is about the same HA as my Antidote. I think similar reach but not 100%. I corner way faster / more confidently / in way more control on the Pole. Which has to be the longer chain stays + the pivot thingy.

I've never really been a geo or numbers kinda guy ... have always been more about feel ... But this shizzle has me pretty interested again which says a lot as I've been pretty burnt out re MTB
Cheers for the podcast heads up, always looking for more good ones to lighten the commute.
 
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