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Recommend me a decent full suspension X-Country bike ?

-alan- said:
I think I might have dismissed the 27.5" bikes too easily. Im 5'8" which might suit the smaller framed bikes better - and also have noticed my old 26" Cube is a lot more wieldy both on tight uphill hairpins, and the snakier downhill single track than my mate's 29".

Can I ask what you mean by a slack hardtail - is that one with more rake in the front forks (like the more modern downhill bikes) ?
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Exactly that. 140mm of slightly slacker travel and 2.5" or 2.6" 27.5 tyres is an awesome combination on anything other than road.

The Vitus Sentier is a great example, but most bike manufacturers offer something similar. They do pull up a bit heavier than a whippety 26" xc hardtail, though, with more wheel rubber and stantion.
 
gordon said:
and carves his visage into Mount Rushmore.
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This reminds me of an old Jack Dee skit back in the '90s when bungee jumping was still relatively new. He had an idea for a sport for "real men". Bungee climbing. The contestants have to scale a sheer cliff while harnessed to a bungee that is secured to the ground. The winner is the contestant who gets highest up the cliff before the bungee tears them off and dashes them on the rocks below.
 
gordon said:
Yes, at least for me. A single speed isn't inherently faster than a geared bike, but it forces me to put in more effort, not spin easy. For example, where I ride, there are a lot of tight, steep switchbacks. On a geared bike, you spin through them no problem. On a single speed, you need to enter with speed, and keep the momentum through the switchback.
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I've also ridden single speed bikes and also ridden trail centres with friends on singlespeed bikes (I've never been stupid/fit enough to ride one there myself!). It can sometimes be quicker on a climb, but not because it's a singlespeed - but because the gearing meant that going slower wasn't a good option (for cadence reasons) so there always seemed to be a lot of swearing involved. Mostly they're just slower everwhere though - wrong gear to climb in, wrong gear on the flat, very much the wrong gear downhill. I accept that it's a choice people make and have no issue with that, but it's not a choice made because it's better.

At the trail centres riding a singlespeed did not look fun at all. Painful but at least capable of a reasonable speed on the climbs (if you were very, very fit), but getting dropped miles behind on the fun stuff. Seemed pointless (other than for pointing out how worthy one was or if it was your only bike) to me. It was very noticeable that anyone who'd ridden a singlespeed at one of our trail centre outing always came with a geared bike next time.
 
foxwelljsly said:
Exactly that. 140mm of slightly slacker travel and 2.5" or 2.6" 27.5 tyres is an awesome combination on anything other than road.

The Vitus Sentier is a great example, but most bike manufacturers offer something similar. They do pull up a bit heavier than a whippety 26" xc hardtail, though, with more wheel rubber and stantion.
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You just have to accept that (especially at trail centres) the approach with those bikes is "winch and plummet" and make sure the gearing is low enough to support climbing at an easy pace. There is a significant proportion of riders who are mostly there for the downhills that have switched to e-Bikes now, partly to make the climbs easier although mostly so they can get more runs in.
 
. It was very noticeable that anyone who'd ridden a singlespeed at one of our trail centre outing always came with a geared bike next time.
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That was my experience. I built a MTB single speed, used it a few times on local rides, and found it fun but exhausting. You are permanently working harder, or going slower, or both, than your mates. On the odd climb you can fire to the top with a 2 minute lungbursting blast, but by the time you get to the top you need oxygen and by the time you've recovered your mates have all joined you, had a cup of tea and a fag, and are ready to carry on.

my SS town bike makes more sense. It's geared about 65 inches, which lets me grind up any climbs here in Leeds. It's one gear lower than I would normally ride on the flat so I can afford to twiddle along. On downhills, who cares, I have a freewheel. However if I wanted a year round commuter and a magic wand I'd probably specify 1x7 or similar for something I had to use every day.
 
-alan- said:
I think I might have dismissed the 27.5" bikes too easily. Im 5'8" which might suit the smaller framed bikes better - and also have noticed my old 26" Cube is a lot more wieldy both on tight uphill hairpins, and the snakier downhill single track than my mate's 29".

Can I ask what you mean by a slack hardtail - is that one with more rake in the front forks (like the more modern downhill bikes) ?
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27.5 is the sweetspot - much harder to go OTB than old steep geometry 26'ers but still nimble. I've had a few 27.5s and in the last 4 years they finally got the geometry to work properly.

Sadly they don't make my bike anymore:
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/anthem-1-2017
Also, sadly you can't buy something like this for £2K new, like I did.

Giant has gone to 29" and shorter travel :( which I suspect is faster for racing.

I have no idea what to replace it with when the time comes.
A 28lb FS bike (incl. pedals) with high quality suspension and short/medium travel for £2K seems to be not possible nowadays.
 
SteveG said:
You just have to accept that (especially at trail centres) the approach with those bikes is "winch and plummet" and make sure the gearing is low enough to support climbing at an easy pace. There is a significant proportion of riders who are mostly there for the downhills that have switched to e-Bikes now, partly to make the climbs easier although mostly so they can get more runs in.
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Don't I know it, the long returns in the Surrey Hills on my Vitus Escarpe (2.6" 27.5 tyres, 150mm of unlockable travel front and rear and 16kg with pedals) are no fun at all. When I was at peak fitness, I could do the full ascent out of Afan in one go on a Kona Kula and loved it. Having said that, the Escarpe is an astonishing bike for the 1700 squids it cost new.

It's always been the case that any MTB is somewhere on the sliding scale of compromise between climbing and descending. The lumpiness that has worn into most MTB locations necessitates the burliness of most modern bikes and means they're heavy no matter what they're made of, which is one reason e assistance is so popular. A slackish 27.5+ hardtail with 140mm of travel coming in at 12kg would be my dream bike, but I suspect it's a physical impossibility.
 
If it were possible, I suspect it would be very fragile (and expensive!) into the bargain, which would make it somewhat of another compromise..
 
foxwelljsly said:
Don't I know it, the long returns in the Surrey Hills on my Vitus Escarpe (2.6" 27.5 tyres, 150mm of unlockable travel front and rear and 16kg with pedals) are no fun at all. When I was at peak fitness, I could do the full ascent out of Afan in one go on a Kona Kula and loved it.

It's always been the case that any MTB is somewhere on the sliding scale of compromise between climbing and descending.
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It has indeed, and a Kula is very much on the adding-lightness end of the scale. Mine is very light but unforgiving on technical descent s.
 
stevec67 said:
It has indeed, and a Kula is very much on the adding-lightness end of the scale. Mine is very light but unforgiving on technical descent s.
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Fatter tyres will smooth out those descents. The Kula will just about take most 2.3's and an old style 26" XC hardtail with a single ring set up, 120mm of travel and 2.3 tyres is a damn good trail bike.

Unfortunately mine eventually succumbed to years of baggage handlers and getting totally hammered when I discovered that the rear dropouts had been battered out of alignment. The crankset and seatpost clamp from that 2006 bike live on on my Orange G4.
 
foxwelljsly said:
Fatter tyres will smooth out those descents. The Kula will just about take most 2.3's and an old style 26" XC hardtail with a single ring set up, 120mm of travel and 2.3 tyres is a damn good trail bike.
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You know what, I just might go this way. I've got a serious sh*tegripper 2.3 on the front and a 2.0 rear, but it will take bigger as you say. I can modernise it to 1x10 Deore for £110 parts, though shipping is a shopping £50. Will a 10x go on a 9 speed hub, or do I need to build a new wheel with another hub?
 
stevec67 said:
You know what, I just might go this way. I've got a serious sh*tegripper 2.3 on the front and a 2.0 rear, but it will take bigger as you say. I can modernise it to 1x10 Deore for £110 parts, though shipping is a shopping £50. Will a 10x go on a 9 speed hub, or do I need to build a new wheel with another hub?
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All I can say is I've successfully fitted Shimano and Sunrace 10 speed cassettes on DT Swiss & XT freehubs that predate 10 speed cassettes, so my observations suggest yes. That's not to say there isn't some weird 10 speed cassette which needs a wider free hub out there. The Deore 11-42 fits fine, though and is perfect for a 26". It works on my Kinesis with an older XT 786 clutch mech and longer b screw. However, the hanger on my Santa cruz was shorter and, even with a longer b screw, I could only go to up to 40 on that frame with the 786 mech. If you get the matching deore mech for the 1x group, you won't have that problem.

Re tyres, Maxxis Ardent 26x2.25 come up just as fat as many 2.3's and will sit on narrow xc rims better than many 2.3x26 tyres. They're not cheap, though.
 
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