threehats

@sfarnum: It’s fine most of the time - it’s not exactly an XC bike!

I prefer how my e-full-sus handles vs every normal full-sus I’ve ridden - and most of that is down to the extra (sprung) mass in the frame!

Mine is a Pipedream Moxie with a 160mm Lyrik - amazing!

Get a singlespeed 29” hardtail with a big fork and modern geometry. Makes no sense in theory but it’s SO MUCH FUN!

Wow, so many comments! I’ve had a Levo for over 4 years and commute on it every day, plus using it for trail riding and lapping the steep trails that require a push up. If I’m with other riders then I tend to switch the motor off so it feels fair (and I get some proper exercise). If not then I’ll tend to go full turbo and climb the hills v fast. My other MTB that gets used for most of my proper MTBing is my singlespeed hardtail. I like them equally. I don’t have a non-e full-sus anymore so my plan for my next away trip is to fashion some kind of battery cover and ride the Levo without the battery in it, rather than try to survive consecutive days of rocky trails and uplift/bike park on a hardtail (that I can’t be bothered to put gears back on!)

44 with three children under 10 to take up much of my spare time! My current exercise life seems to be commuting (a mix of trails and tarmac) five days a week on my e full-sus, 3-4 visits per week to the gym for some strength training and one proper MTB ride a week on my singlespeed hardtail. And my job can be quite physical. I had a couple of weeks recently where I had to commute on the singlespeed and noticed I was a lot grumpier with the kids - there seems to be only a finite amount of physical energy available and the ebike helps manage that better. Some days I pedal like a lunatic and/or take the long way to work, tire my legs out and get some good trails in, some days I let it tow me there like a motorbike where I have to keep twiddling my legs round. Before I got my current hardtail I rode the ebike on a lot of group rides where all/most of the other riders were on normal bikes - so I’d turn the power off and work harder.

@ak-77: it was a paper I read that I think was published by The Smithsonian but I’ve never found it since! I questioned the manufacturers’ claims because I have longer limbs for my height than my wife does for hers and started hunting to see what there was to support it - this was at least a decade ago and now most brands have stopped claiming that women have different proportions in this way. As a long-legged person I’d recommend not going too long on the reach, fitting a long dropper post and properly high rise bars. There’s also an argument for chainstay lengths not being as short (partly for pedalling, partly because your hips are further back when standing) and for steeper seat angles. It’s long-torso short-leg people that ran into more fit issues but modern geometry has pretty much fixed that.

@nickfranko: men and women have the same average torso:leg ratio and the same distribution of ratios across the population - for a given ethnic heritage. Unfortunately bike brands either made up the “fact” you quoted or just used bad science. Ethnic heritage does affect torso:leg ratio with people whose ancestors evolved in colder climates having shorter limbs for their height on average.

@SATN-XC: From an email sent to a UK Giant owner with a cracked frame: “Under the exclusions section of the Giant UK warranty policy, it states that a bicycle serviced by a non-Giant retailer has no warranty.” I’m fairly certain that this warranty exclusion wouldn’t withstand scrutiny under UK law but until they behave reasonably (or are forced to by the legal system) I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to buy a Giant bike without being aware that the warranty is almost worthless.

@Larkey1: Not me, some very shady warranty claim avoidance by Giant UK; https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/warranty-denied-as-i-stripped-the-bike-down/