Triple Clamps on a hardtail

[christoph]

what is the reason behind triple clamps on a hardtail. My personally thinking is that you dont need 4 inchs of travel on a hardtail, can anyone explain why i see hardtails eg banshees and norcos with boxxers and drop off comps?
i cant see anyone doing anything that needs the travel that a triple clamp provides on a hardtail.

 

[FR Drew]

Hmm, at the 21 post point I could be scathing but that would hardly be productive would it?

Ok, a hardtail has limited bump absorbing ability compared to a duallie. For this reason, the rider must absorb much of the shock through their legs rather than just let it be soaked up by the rear shock.

The simply physics of leverage makes it clear that if the front suspension is plusher and absorbs more shock there then less is transmitted to the rider.

Unlike a normal seesaw style lever with input on one side (the bumps) the fulcrum in the middle and the load on the other (the rider), a hardtail acts as the input being up front (still the bumps) then the load (the rider on the cranks) and finally the fulcrum (the rear wheel).

given cushy plushness in the back end, it seems that duallie riders could get away with shorter travel up front and a stiffer firmer fork for a given level of jarring applied to their legs. In contrast, the hardtail rider requires a longer travel plusher fork up front.

As a general rule, once one gets to about 150mm of travel, triple clamps are the way to go in order to maintain decent stiffness (ignoring 1.5 headtube shermans, fox 36's and marz 66)

Not everybody on a hardtail rides xc or street or dirt jump. Some of us do downhill you know and we need all the travel up front we can get.

If you rode rough tracks on a hardtail you'd understand pretty quickly.

I don't believe it's about the triple clamps, it's about the travel available.

 

[TheDustyBin]

When going from a ridgid bike to a bike with front suspension then difference is amazing. Thus i guess the more travel the better the bike feels when going over bumps! If you try bouncing on a hardtail the front suspension actually compresses slightly and is effective (not as effective as a bike with rear travel) to a certain extent. So the more travel the less pressure on the legs and arms to work. So you are right in a way all that travel is not helpful if you are just dirt jumping or doing urban but if you are free riding or downhilling the more travel the better. And i guess the reason for many of the triple clamp hardtails out there is that they look good!

 

[christoph]

cheers fr drew, for the extremely technical and indepth reason, im all of 16 but i got what you meant. Ive ridden a hardtail with triple clamps and it feels pathetic, really strong, but dissillusioning, I have a stp frame with rock shox pikes on it and i did the big drop on the hursty dh course, The travel 140mm was enough, it went well over small bumps or the larger more guttsy stuff. I really dont think there nessecary unless your doing bender type stuff eg 30 foot drops on a hardtail like in Newer Dissorder 4.

 

[cam-o]

Whilst Drew's answer is well thought out, there's a bloody great hole in the logic. Assuming the input (bumps) is always at the front then the equation works.
Now lets add to that the fact that the same input is going to hit you in the ass about 1/2 a second later. All the fork travel in the world is not going to help when the input and the fulcrum are in the same spot.

Single crown forks nowadays comfortably go 5 to 6 inches. Realistically there are very very few times you need more travel than that on a HT. When there is a heap of travel on a hard tail, the angles change as you go through the travel.
Imagine your bike is now 7 inches lower at the front and the same at the back. Head angle = waaaay steep = skittish handling = bad. That same 7 inches movement on a duallie is accompanied by a similar movement at the back of the bike. Head angle = pretty much what it was before = all good.

The real reason most triple crowns are found on hardtails: it looks tough.
There are exceptions to this, but they are not that common.

 

[Rik]

It isn't too hard to adjust your style to compensate... weight the front end a fair bit, run a big fork with a decent amount of sag, and ride loose. It takes a touch of insanity to race DH on a hardtail, especially with a big DC up front, but enough people do it reasonably competitively to say it's more than just about image. The rear still cops the bumps, but if you're not weighting it, and your legs are loose and ready to absorb them, then the stiff rear end isn't as much of an issue.

Sure, you can ride a 4" fork down any track and not "need" any more travel, but extra travel does help if you run it as sag, especially on faster courses like Thredbo. And funnily enough, I am fastest at Thredbo on the flat out rough sections, such as the one leading in to showoff rock and magnetic rock, that's where I tend to make my time up on other (dually) riders. Not that I'm fast at all, but those are the best sections to ride on my hack Scab... Must be that stiff rear end and too big a fork eh

 

[StormFire]

Imagine your bike is now 7 inches lower at the front and the same at the back. Head angle = waaaay steep = skittish handling = bad. That same 7 inches movement on a duallie is accompanied by a similar movement at the back of the bike. Head angle = pretty much what it was before = all good.

By 'waaaay steep' you do mean normal right?

bottoming ANY fork out on a hardtail will result in the same end head angle no matter the fork, so you can't really say that a 7 inch fork will result in skittish handling when bottomed out, cause bottoming out a 4 inch for will have identical handling traits. Plus i doubt that a fork barely stays at the end of it's travel long enough for you to decide whether the handling is skittish or not. Sure, it will handle differently than when the fork isn't compressed at all, but considering you usually run plenty of sag on long travel forks, and the fact that you only use you're full travel on big hits, you'd barely notice any real difference in handling.

 

[FR Drew]

Given how crap a rider I am, I'm never going to look tough, even if I rivet spikes down the back of my armour, dress in lots of black and scowl permanently. That being the case, having triple clamps isin't going to make me look tougher, it's going to make me look like more of a try hard, overage tool.

That said, they feel plusher to ride on and the slackening off on the head angle and the extra travel up front makes me feel like I'm less likely to go over the bars when I utterly gumby up whatever timid thing it is I'm attempting to do.

Of course, I've already proven to myself that if I'm enough of a talentless gumby I'm more than capable of going over the bars, even with triple clamps, it just requires a little more effort or stupidity on my part.

I feel safer and more comfortable on the bike, therefore I ride better and the rake out in the head angle suits dh more. (not that I'd classify myself as a DH rider)

For the record, I don't think cam-o believes in hardtails... silly painful things!

 

[Mo]

well i remember ages ago that there were xc riders with triple clamps.
any reason for that?

 

[Roly]

well i remember ages ago that there were xc riders with triple clamps.
any reason for that?

Years ago the thought of 200mm travel was unheard of, And the average amount of travel on DC forks was probably about 150mm.
Technology has changed so much that back then any more than 160mm or so would put to much pressure on the forks themselves.
Remember, we have advanced so quickly and so fast in such a short time, and years before suspension systems like the ones today would have been dreaming...

 

[fastrider gus]

i cant see anyone doing anything that needs the travel that a triple clamp provides on a hardtail.

look harder then dickhead.. dont be another one of those fools who pays shit out just because YOU dont like it... dont ruin it for others...

 

[christoph]

abit hasty there mate!
why dont you calm down and talk reasonably like everyone in this thread is doing, everyone is putting there points up, if you want to do it then do it, but dont come out and have a go at someone like that, completely unnessecary.

 

[fastrider gus]

the main reason people put tripple clamps on hardtails is because its what they like. in some cases it is needed, and some it isnt. thats nothing for you to criticise at all.
just because you dont see people doing stuff that "needs" the travel that tripple clamps provide, it doesnt mean that there isnt people out there hitting stuff that needs DH forks. I used to run tripple clamps on a hardtail for years, i loved it! the main reason for me was because i didnt have enough money for a Dh bike, so i made what i had able to do everything and that ment bigger and stronger forks.
i was hastey because there are so many small minded people like you that automatically say shit like "ewwww tripple clamps on a hardtail??" as soon as they see it...
reasonable enough?

 

[La pointe]

Triple clamps on a HT allows you to ride DH with your DJ bike. It's also much stronger (I broke my DJ1, 3 headsets and 2 Sherman breakouts in 1.5years, but it's all good since I got triple clamps)....maybe I am not the smoothest rider too!!
I am actually much faster with more travel when riding DH.

 

[donthucktoflat]

Triple clamps on a HT allows you to ride DH with your DJ bike. It's also much stronger (I broke my DJ1, 3 headsets and 2 Sherman breakouts in 1.5years, but it's all good since I got triple clamps)....maybe I am not the smoothest rider too!!
I am actually much faster with more travel when riding DH.

ahem, as are most. i

i will soon be investing in a pair of boxxers for my HT (scab) and yes, it WILL be posted up on farkin for all to see. i have ridden a few HTs with DCs and they feel rad (mainly riks, 8ft huck to flat, nosing it in ) but it feels reallly nice when riding it. i say try it before oyu diss it.

 

[Blonde kid on Morphine]

I used to run single crown shermans on my Morphine and have recently swapped to some DC shermans and the change was for the better, For the type of riding I enjoy doing the most the bike handles much much better with a DC fork, I say providing the bike can take it and you enjoy the ride it gives there is no worries at all for DC's on a hardtail.

Tim.

 

[naz]

\
im with fast rider gus, haha lets post up his pics and mate it will put ur criticism to shame (christoph) he will huck bigger than u will ever imagine (and no gus im not tryin to get u into bed)

triples on a hardtail started for me about 3 years ago, ran super t's on a one25 it broked, 243 with 888r, hucked the fuck outta it, didnt break, didnt crack, lasted longer than i did huckin, moved to street.

my motivation for triples on hardtail was the look on peoples face when u beat them on DH and they were riding dually's. and because i was a punk.

 

[baz_abo]

i was out out on the weekend jumping at the tassie mtb park on a 26 inch mountain bike with Z150 (my bike) after the whole day jumping i felt like a change so i jumped on a 20 inch BMX and did all the jumps on that fine i dont think it takes long to adjust at all.

 

[christoph]

Just for your information, i have ridden hardtails with triple clamps on them, so your theory there just went down the drain.

 

[Rik]

And people ride hardtails and need 7" of travel, so your theory has gone down the drain too.