Rapidé Introduces the Versatile Tigré Steel Hardtail Frame

 Ya agreed to wonder why they went with 72 degrees? I'm running a 2019 Chromag and I thought 76 degrees was a bit slack lol.

 I see what you did there.

 It was looking like a contender until I saw that. My 2014 Krampus has a steeper STA

 I really don’t understand why we’re still hooked to these old geometry figures.
Why do I have to buy a „hardcore hardtail“ to get something with an appropriate seat tube angle. Especially for taller guy like me, this is quite frustrating.

 "To say we're excited is an understatement."

 theres a reason not to use extreme seat angles in hardtail frames, that is when the bike sags the fork the ST angle increases. But 72 degree is too slack even so. I made a 75 degree STA hardtail frame and seens to be a sweet spot for "not too agressive" riding. If I live somewhere with steeper hills to climb would go to 76 or even 77.

 Holy crap, 26.9" top tube? They only make stems so short.

 I am going to guess that number may be the actual seatube angle and not the effective? Really wish companies would do a better job of listing both for all us bike nerds.

 How much rear sag do you think it gets on the climbs? @jtsimaras:

 It's like they don't even ride bikes, just skim articles about contemporary geo.

 That does sound slack but that’s static I assume and will steepen up when measured with a sagged fork. Plus you can lengthen the chainstays to get your center of mass ahead of the rear axle. My personal bike is pretty wrong according to modern geometry thoughts. Chameleon with a 150 travel 29er Fox 36. But I run 27.5 wheels. I bought it that way because it was set up plus sized but I don’t care for plus tires. My static seat angle is 71. No idea what sagged angle is but probably around 73. I extended the the rear centre all the way back because it has that adjustment available. I like how it rides. A taller guy than me might not get along with that slack seat angle. My inseam is 31 inches but I’m under 5’5” now.

Another potential issue with steep seat angles on a hardtail is having the seat too far forward when you stand to climb. The seat might be rattling between your butt cheeks.

 @Someoldfart: My hardtail has a 74 deg seat angle it works well and any time it feels a bit too far forward it's usually a situation where I drop the seat and solve the problem. It's actually nice for climbs to have the seat pitch forward a bit as you sag into your fork as it keeps the front down. Steeper seat angles make a dropper kind of necessary as that forward seat can get in the way on steeps, but that's not a drawback to me as I love my dropper and put it down for anything steep or fun. Having long reach with a stretched out ETT is a way bigger problem which nothing will solve. I don't know how a company making a bike in 2021 can't see this. The only bike I could take a slacker seat angle is a fatbike as I ride less aggro on snow etc. and winter conditions can wreck a dropper quick. .

 @Someoldfart:
I don't think the seat angle would change by 2° when seated. Fork sag is measured whilst stood up and on a hardtail will change the head angle by around 2°. The time when you need a steep seat angle is seated climbing, being seated will sag the forks much less than when stood up and might only change the angle by 1°.

 @DC1988: also when you're climbing you have no weight on the front so there is no sag. FS need to be steeper because the rear sags when climbing.

 @jaame: says the owner of the company

 Also, if the angle is measured from the BB to the top of the seatpost then the bend half way up makes it more like 70 degrees

 Yéah it's too bad, hadn't théy put that bénd in the séattubé thé géo would havé béén prétty good.
On anothér wébsité, théré's a sécond géo tablé with a 100mm fork, and thé séattubé is around 74°, so it sééms to bé moré adaptéd to short travél.

 @Will-narayan: Definitely, in South Africa we have very few trails besides for the areas around Cape Town where you want anything more than 120mm of travel. In Gauteng (the province Rapide is based in) you are hard pressed to find more than 100m of elevation per 10km - it's XC marathon country. Even in the Western Cape where we have good elevation the vast majority of riders are found in spandex on Specialized Epics with no dropper posts. So although Rapide are aiming this at the growing Enduro and Trail market in SA, I am guessing they know the majority of the market is still XC focused, and the vast majority of the frames sold in SA will be built with a 120mm fork.

 @Rig: that makes sense then

 @jtsimaras: that number is also based around a 140mm fork. if you were running it rigid, 100mm, 120mm etc those numbers will be substantially steeper. however the BB will also get substantially lower. not sure how that would effect pedal strikes.

 Check that TT length. You would be happier with Medium anyway.

What I don't understand is unnecessary slack SA. Even slacker than on traditional XC bikes. 680 mm TT on Large bike?

 @Tigergoosebumps: But why would you not want the most post drop you can get, or failing that, why would the manufacturer choose to limit the choice for the customers? If it was lower the frame would be lighter, stiffer, stronger, the ride would be better because of the flex in the post, even the damn roadies have worked that out by now, yet hardtails end up with seat tube lengths disproportionately longer than the current FS bikes??

 My Rootdown will only fit a 150 and I'm 178cm on a M/L frame. It has a 470mm seat tube. I think I could cut 20mm off of the top of the tube, but I'd rather not.

 @pbuser2299: "But why would you not want the most post drop you can get, or failing that, why would the manufacturer choose to limit the choice for the customers? If it was lower the frame would be lighter, stiffer, stronger, the ride would be better because of the flex in the post, even the damn roadies have worked that out by now, yet hardtails end up with seat tube lengths disproportionately longer than the current FS bikes??"


Because bikepackers like to fit a frame bag in the front triangle. So there's a compromise that's made for a "versatile" frame like this. Plus, look at the water bottle cage braze ons on the seat tube. They limit insertion as well. So this frame is trying to accomplish a "goldilocks" situation....which naturally requires compromise. I have two different hardtails. 1) Surly Krampous (size med)---no seattube braze ons, but taller seatube, fits a framebag and a 170mm dropper 2) Why Cycles Wayward V2 (size med)---seat tube braze ons, BUT lower seat tube length, does not fit same framebag as Krampus but does fit a 170mm dropper (so all said and done the Krampus relegates your 2nd water bottle to the underside of the down tube, but allows for bigger frame bag, Wayward allows for 2nd water bottle inside triangle but will only fit a smaller frame bag.....compromises.....

 Super short seat posts are getting borderline too short on some bikes. Super long seatposts might need to be put close to their minimum insertion limit for tall people, or worse if they keep getting shorter. Plus, that nice extra flex you get from a long rigid seatpost will cause a dropper post to flex more (i.e. inside its bits, not the post), hence more leverage to cause premature wear to its bushings etc. They aren't exactly the most reliable of things anyway; I'm 6'4" and mine failed on its 7th ride, and that was with me using a rear mudguard. Grumble grumble.

 Ragley got it right. I fit a 170mm travel BrandX Ascend on my small Mmmbop.

 @pipm1: Tall human problems. I concur.

 210mm ONEUP dropper changed my life. It's now my number one checkbox on any new bike. I also wish hardtail manufacturers would start putting bottle cage mounts under the top tube and on top the down tube, as close to the seat tube as possible. Then bag manufacturers could start building cute little wedge bags, and we could be blessed with long droppers, 2 full-sized water bottles, AND SNACKS!

 I think Salsa makes that - use their alternator dropout and you can fit all sorts of things.

 Surly does that with most of their bikes, you need to buy a cheap adapter from them but the karate monkey and krampus can both fit 135 through 148 rear depending on configuration

 NS Surge

 Cotic's another one. They exist, they have for a while.

 @dubiousdesigns: I don’t think Cotic do anything with swappable drop ours. My Bfe certainly doesn’t.

 This is exactly why I bought a Production Privee Shan. It’s not exactly “modern” geo (73.5 STA, 615 TT on a large) but it has swappable dropouts and can run 26” or 27.5”. Was $$ to bring to the US but I love how it rides.

 See surly, that's like all their bikes. They're awesome for the money.

 @DrChaos: Only problem with the surge is its so stiff, they beef the bike up so much they lose all the great qualities of steel.

 Geo aside, steel frames typically sell at a premium. Chromag for example.

 @sfarnum: you're going to need to update the price to reflect the geometry of 10 years ago. So $400 is pretty fair considering what you can get a 10yr old chromag frame for

 Steel should be payed premium if high quality tubing is used. Most of this brands use 4130 butted tubes that we find in BMX frames, not that fancy or expensive.

 @nozes: Yet you still pay a premium for most 4130 frames.

 Materials, labour, transportation and other costs associated with the production of bike frames don't care about "cutting edge geo".

Rapide would charge the same regardless of slacker or steeper seat and head tube angles. This seems to be more of a Swiss Army knife-esque frame. It's made for versatility.

 I definitely prefer a shorter ett on bikepacking rigs.

 In South Africa it is... all steel hardtails we need to import, so they work out crazy expensive - in South African Rands you are looking at 15,000 for a Cotic, more for a Chromag because we have to get it from the states - for this you are looking ar 10,000. For us, this is the only steel option if you don't want to import or go custom.

 Rapidé would translate to "fasted" maybe? Rapidé tigré: 0 in France, just because of the name

 Indééd

 The Achilles heel of this frame

 ....or ribbed

 Nope it’s 72 for 140mm fork. That number you have is for a rigid fork

 @enduroNZ: a rigid fork with what ATC?

 @enduroNZ: yep I saw after I posted. At least I got the url right. Haha

 Yep was good for that! Cheers! @zeedre:

 They Geo chart lists #s for different forks... the rigid is 490mm ATC, but they don't give specific length #s for the suspension forks so who knows what the lengths they're using or what brands/models of forks.

 I ordered a 2021 Middlechild Chromo. They lowered the seat tube length on their frames in 2021!

 @deeeight ".more frames from the factory in Taiwan that RSD sources their frames from." = FAKE NEWS!
This looks nothing like an RSD or the workmanship for the factory they RSD uses.
There are hundreds of factories in Taiwan. Not every Taiwanese frame is made in the same factory.

 @deeeight: Kristian. You have no idea what you are talking about, but obviously insecurities about your knowledge is pushing you to insult others while hiding behind a keyboard

 @deeeight: I'll email you shortly

 @deeeight: Man I missed having you around the comments on a semi-regular basis. Not even being sarcastic.

 Hahahaha, I went on a LEGIT mountain ride, with two friends, with single speed. It was a disaster. What's the one thing that can't go wrong with single speed? Well; the chain kept falling off. Additional to having no gears.

 I do

 Half of my rides are singlespeed. I love it.

 I have a few single speeds. I like them, dont prefer them for trails too often. If you drop a chain on a single speed you set it up poorly.

 @RonSauce: My hub was 17 years old, and that was the problem. It had a lot of movement in it.

 @Kramz: sounds like somebody needed cone wrenches for Christmas.

 Well, I have a cone wrench. Probably the biggest issue you see there, is the cone that loosens with the forward wheel direction. Pretty sure the left one did that on that hub.

 @Kramz: not really sure why cup and cone systems seem so opaque to sho many people. I assume that you have a freehub based rear hub, which means that you should set the cone and locknut on the drive side and then adjust bearing preload in the non-drive side (and set that lock nut). If this cannot be done without resulting in a loose hub, your cones may need to be replaced. Potentially, your freehub may also need to be replaced if that is the source of the play, although some of those designs may be adjusted as well.

 Because Spaz released the Rapide WHEELSET around 2019/2020...and the full wording is the Roval Rapide ?

Rapide as a brand have been around since 2009.

 @HairyLegs: It was a joke but thank you for your timeline

 @BespokeTrailMix:
All good man ... one just never knows how serious (and I assumed you were) the Spaz brigade can get
Rapide are really a fantastic company to deal with. I have purchased various items from them, and the owner Wayne is always open to questions or assistance. They are also really the only company where one can find single speed goodies from easily in SA, so a real asset to the cycling family in South Africa.

 @HairyLegs: What's even funnier is all three bikes I currently own are Specialized, and I've owned a total of 5. You could consider me a Big-S fanboy, but I also like poking fun at them. Hopefully Spesh is past their days of picking on the little guys. Smaller brands like Rapide are part of what make this sport so great.

 @BespokeTrailMix: I need to confess ... I too have previously owned a Spaz