What if you were forced to choose one bike that you would have to use for every aspect of your cycling for the rest of your life? Let’s say that the brand of the bike doesn’t matter and you must pick from one of the major categories like, downhill, all-mountain, XC/trail, or slopestyle, etc. Could you live with a dual-crown gravity sled and pass on trail riding? Would you take the practical route and buy a hardtail with aggressive enough geometry to handle the steeps? Short-travel dual-suspension trailbikes are awesomely capable these days, but could 120-millimeters get ‘er done if you decided to try some enduro racing? By far, the model of the moment is a 150-millimeter AM/trailbike, but could you session with it at the jump park?
Brad Walton puts the six-inch-travel Yeti SB 66 to task in the roots of Bellingham, Washington. Accomplished Big Bike riders like Walton can coax an all-mountain trailbike like the SB 66 down and over almost every feature that they ride their gravity bikes on. Brad Walton photo
Life throws other considerations into the mix that could dramatically affect your decision. Mister Spandex XC might fall in love with Miss Pro DH and find himself wishing for something more than a road bike with lumpy tread and flat handlebars. How will that freestyle hardtail and your size-six, double low-rise stretch-jeans be working for you ten years from now, when the magnitude of your butt is on par with that of the average Harley Davidson rider? Will you be pulling your daughter in her Hello Kitty trailer around the park behind that Demo 8? I’ll bet that 29er single-speed rocked when you worked in Wisconsin for Trek, but now that you took a position with Yeti in Colorado…? Are there lift-access parks in Florida?
Kyle Strait demonstrates that there are some situations where only one bike will fill the bill. Arguably, the biggest jump at Red Bull Rampage 2012. Margus Riga photo
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Chromag Aperture hardtail in its element. Mike Kazimer proves that dual suspension is not a requirement for shredding parks and technical trails. One wonders, however if a 30-pound steel hardtail is as fun as a 27-pound carbon dual-suspension trailbike? Brad Walton photo
Bonus Poll - 1
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Bonus Poll - 2
Big wheels can make up for lost suspension travel, should you choose to downsize from a long-travel all-mountain/freeride machine to hedge against a future lifestyle change. Niner's RIP-9 has proven to be a capable choice for technical trail riding. Ian Hylands photo
Any bike can go anywhere. The limitation is the rider (and arguably the tires) which is why statements like this are kinda pointless.
Trying to combine uphill and downhill performance in most cases ends up as a compromise that's far from cool to ride - why have a 70mm stem when you can spec a 50mm one basing the reach and stack around it? Why have a specific enduro tyre (Schwalbe HD) that doesn't corner like ,say, a Minion but still is a drag uphill? Why have such light frames that you're afraid to send it on a rock guarden?
Take my Honzo. Dropper post, pure DH tyre (Spesh Butcher), 50mm stem, 760mm bars, flat pedals and so on. Current weight is around 13.2kg, which is only 700gr more than a regular 29er hardtail and it rolls quite good (comparable to a 26er on RR's) while being an absolute blast on the downhills and singletracks.
In short, the little gains for climbing aren't worth the big costs in fun..
Joseph - it works the other way around as well: sometimes little gains on donwhill can bring big costs to all roundness.
I did mention: if you live in mountains. Majority of people owning mountain bikes doesn't live in place with hills higher than 1000ft because big cities where most of people live, are founded far from mountain areas. Don't worry I am not going into history of establishing cities.
and kramster: you are either 250lbs or you are trying to come out real tough... XC racer will not allow you to get too fast on a regular ride - if you are as good, you will adjust your technique to the bike maximum capabilities. You won't send a single thing with such bike thus you can't break it easily.
You don't have to be 250lbs or much good to flat 2.1 single ply tires and wreck 350g rims. I can ride my Nomad without 'adjusting my technique' at all in Whistler if I feel like it. Sure, it will be marginally slower and less comfy and won't last as long, but good luck sending the Crabapple Hits, or riding Mt7 Psychosis on 70D head angle 21 pound race machine with 2.1 tires and 620mm bar and 6 inch rotors.
I regularly bent the shock bolt on my Blur 4X, cracked a V10 at the headtube and a Chameleon at the chainstay yoke. No, I'm not a tough guy at all, but does that give you a clue that someone other than you might be capable of destroying a pure XC race machine on a DH track in a run or two? It's got nothing to do with being tough, and everything to do with horses for courses and that little pony cannot take much I guarantee it.
Not sure if you're just trying to stir shit, or maybe you very unfortunately just don't have a clue because you don't have terrain that makes your idea sound laughable. But either way thanks for jab big guy.
Waki, on revisiting your first post I now think I see what you mean. If you're trying to say it's more versatile I would agree. If you're trying to say you can do 'more' on it, that's all dependant on what 'more' you want to do. Is it good for a beginner? Depends where you live I guess; I personally wouldn't recommend it to a non racer around here. If that's the bike you'd choose forever that's your call and I'm sure some people would live happily ever after and wouldn't be riding trails that are bike breakers anyway. Looks like we'll both be negged into oblivion anyway.
Those polls are inevitably guiding people to try to find the best bike for everyone everywhere. I don't know why we are fine with accepting diversity when choosing tyres while, same logic can be and should be applied to nearly every component of the bike. Like: wide bars FTW, but what if one lives in area with damn tight vegetation, how do you make your bike stable in other way than putting a long stem, when you can't have bars wider than 650?!
Simply put, I can climb almost as well as an XC rig, and I can descend near as quick as a DH rig. I can lock out front and rear for long road and flat trail rides.In all, I have ridden DH,(On downhill courses) and I have ridden XC racers... mostly on my local trails, and I find my 150 front 160 rear is a perfect balance for all riding.
My parts specs are burly enough to handle a good amount of abuse, and the build is also light enough to keep riding a hundred plus km at a time.(in the average month I put 600-1000 km on my bike, mostly weekend riding, with the odd 5k jaunt through my locals.). So my one bike is a mish mash of none stock on a sickeningly light enduro/AM frame.
Thanks for reading guys!
wtf ppl.... You just don't give it any props just leave it flat and move on with your lives
sry for my English xD
26 is the best option for the rest of us and the pros can keep their massive hoops for the races.
They're short travel, so you can rip trail riding with at least some semblance of efficiency, while probably having more fun than your XC/trail bike riding nerd friends, just make sure your seat post is long enough!
They're slack geo wise, so you can make it down any DH riding if you're smart with your line choices.... sure, you can't race, and your buddies might beat you on the tech trails, but you can rip the jump trails with the best of 'em.
Toss on your Holy Rollers, and BAM! You can shred up the urban scene or the skate park with class and style. No biggy.
Any other types of riding? Those are for nerds anyway, you don't need it!
Check how slack the recent am bikes are. My fox float is almost 7 inch with 67 degree. Trust me I don't brake and pick lines I pound straight through the gnar just like you bud! Have you been to blue mountain? How can you say what it's like??
I know i can´t ride DH forever, my body says it "no more" somewhere distant future. So i´ll say, i starded riding on hardtails and i end it on hardtails. 26 wheeled, Ti or Steel Hardtail with 120-140mm fork would be my most realistic choise, for rest of my life.
650B = 27.1 get it right peeps...
People don't necessarily buy what the say they want to buy.
1.What they think 2.What they say they think, 3. what they actualy do 4.Then what they think they did, can be completely unrelated to one another. Anything can happen when we buy products that are not the necessities at the moment of necessity. Feeling that you are completely disilusioned is the biggest delusion
All-in-all, I just want a simple bike that can handle most everything thrown at it, that doesn't weigh too much (30 pounds is no problem for me!), 26" wheels, and no being stuck with proprietary parts. I want my bike to be durable, easy to service, and straightforward. I don't care about flash, I don't care about acronyms, I don't care about exotic materials, and quite frankly; I just wanna ride!
160front / 150 rear, 67.5 head tube and a dropper post. can do just about everything reasonably well
If money were "a little object": a burly 120-140mm trail bike with 160 coil fork (Banshee Spitfire)
If money were "a big object": 120-140 hardtail with open bath coil fork
If there was a global oblivion: Stiff 29" singlespeed.
I'm still convinced this site exists only so Tyler and crew can get some free parts and sell some ad-space. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't so naked and shameless.
(Yes, I know the response is going to be "Don't visit.")
200-100-locked frame with air shock as plush as coil with bottle cages
200-100-locked single crown air fork as plush as coil
Wide bars with bar ends so I can strech forward on steep uphills
35 stem
Dropper post that will push the saddle forward and up for climbing, and down and back for dh
Superlow gearing to go up and chain device for dh
Good brakes (saint?)
Wide light strong rims no fancy spokes please
Minions dh 2,5 for sure
25 lbs
The rest is up to you...
Now this is a bike that i would pay what they are asking for todays bikes
Good luck trek, spesh, etc...
And dont bother me with your damn,stupid, wheel size war,that I can not afford to keep up with until you acomplish this mission
Let's see.... Last month, I rode my Mongoose Khyber Elite at the Dark Mountain Super D, which was more like Blue Velvet at Whistler, at Snowshoe for the opening day (fun on the jumps on Powerline, Ninja Bob, and Missing Link as well as M and O line), then ran the Oak Mountain Bump 'n Grind Super D where getting to the start was like heading for an enduro stage and the race itself seemed like 7 minutes of pedaling!
Yeah...., AM bikes kick a$$.
I do have an old 'Goose ECD, kinda like your bike's great uncle or something, right?
Cheers.
Whatever the case, I love Boot'r's too and am seriously thinking of picking up one of those as well. The new GT Fury is really tempting me. :-)
The poll is kooky why must I choose only one company for all my parts?
Whoever makes the best product gets my coin.
Unless your fun is climbing. You can easily put downhill in place of climbing in this statement.
over a duallie or a HT for my only bike. Hype surrounds the back shock, but it's your legs that count. My legs
will perform better than any suspension design however complicated it is, and I just need front travel to save my
wrists, cause they are not capable of heavy hits like ankles. They are much more fun on 90% of the trails around
too, but this fun is only opened once you stop hoping it will grow a back spring. Cause it wont.
I love my remedy too, don't get me wrong
I do love my remedy too tho
BAM
Better with lockable fork and rear shox, in order to climb the steepest hill esasier.
"If you had to pick both a drivetrain and a brake system from one brand – for life – would it be Shimano or SRAM?"
Whats the difference?
Both sound like a bike around 150mm, 26-30lbs, 3x, 2x, or 1x...
I'm surprised its as many as that...
Bonus poll 3: How many people will openly admit they are over-biked the majority of the time?
After seeing Proto type 650 b Scott Gambler is it a composite frame?