The urge returns; there’s something about the coming of summer that instigates New Bike ideas
Blame Iceland. Not the discount supermarket. The country. Specifically the excellently outlying bike brand called Lauf that hails from there. Yes, the company behind leaf-sprung suspension forks and comfy carbon gravel bikes.
To cut a short story even shorter, I had a quick go on a too-small-for-me Lauf Elja mountain bike (just to see how the rear suspension behaved when set-up different ways) and was totally smitten. It was just a total stomping machine.
Stomp and go. Instant acceleration. Addictive.
Sure, the lack of inertia also meant it demanded to be pedalled ALL the time. It felt like it had no momentum. Stop pedalling and it was surprising just how quickly the freewheeling stopped. And yeah, the head angle did try to kill me on the more interesting bits of trail. And the lack of cornering and braking traction was something alarming.
But nonetheless, it was an undeniably fun morning out. The sort of morning that means an afternoon (and evening) spent daydreaming mountain bike themed ‘what ifs’…
What if I tried a larger size?
What if I put different tyres on it?
What if it’s all just wheel weight and anti-squat?
Can you get the frame in a different colour?
You’re not alone
And so here we are. I’m sure I’m not alone. There must be plenty of other should-know-better mountain bikers out there who are pondering a new short travel bike.
I think the key with ‘going short’, is to not have it as your one and only bike. Well, if possible. It’s not always financially sensible to own more than one mountain bike. But if conditions allow, don’t bin your trail-duro bike just yet. Why? Big bikes can do small stuff. But small bikes cannot do big stuff.
The best do-it-all bike is a longer travel bike that you can tweak to behave smaller (different tyres, firmer suspension etc). Trying to make a short travel bike more capable just never works. Believe me. Even if you could get the geometry and the traction of a longer travel bike in a short travel weight bike, it doesn’t matter. It’s the lack of weight that can actually make the handling/traction lacking. Weight is useful when the terrain gets hectic.
But…
Having said that, I am clearly still going to try and make a short travel bike more capable. Because, like you, I never learn.
How much short travel do I want? I think it needs to be nearer 100mm than 150mm. Lines just get too blurred otherwise. So 130mm (rear) travel is out. So too is 125mm. Ideally without Horst-Link (too squishy for this task). Ideally without an overly finnicky leverage ratio curve (there’s only so much shock travel to deal with here after all).I’m browsing 100-120mm bikes.
Which instantly brings up the big problem. Geometry. I just don’t hold with the theory that less travel equals steeper/shorter geometry. Bikes is bikes. 65°+ head angles and short reach figures are just… not good.
Taking the Lauf Elja as a starting point. The reach figures are fine (503mm on XL). But the head angle is 65.6°. Not quite my tempo, as they say.
Just slap in an angle adjust headset then? Not so fast with that hammer and two-by-four, Eugene. Like a lot of carbon-centric lightweight-head brands, Lauf use the IS standard for headsets. Drop-in bearings in other words. No external cups. Dang.
But hang on. 9point8 have the answer. They make a Slack-R head-angle adjusting sleeve thing. Which I *think* would knock 1.6° off the head angle. Now, 64° I can work with. Especially if I build the cockpit around 12° backsweep bars that put my grips inline with my stem cap. Hmm…
Priority parts
Suspension-wise. An inline rear shock. A suspension fork with 35mm stanchions. Ideally both dampers to have low speed compression adjustment (instead of climb/lockout switches).
Drivetrain. The new Shimano XTR Di2. Because it’s supposed to arrive with us any day now. Ditto brakes. Probably 2-pots but with 203mm rotors please. Also XTR wheels.
Dropper. The seat tube lengths (and insertion depths) on the Elja are pretty good, so I’m probably plumb a 240mm OneUp V3 dropper in there. On top of that I’ll slide on a new WTB Silverado saddle.
Cockpit. DMR 31.8mm Sweeper 12° handlebars. Some 35mm length 31.8mm stem. Gusset Sleeper push-on grips.
Tyres? Hmm… I don’t really know. I will probably start with a set of Maxxis Forekasters front and rear. Although, I did quite enjoy the new WTB Peacekeepers that were (temporarily) on the Lauf Elja…
Pedals? Not sure. Flats though. Possibly some more HT PA03A composite flatties. In grey.
Looks
What are my aesthetic demands (aside from questionable)? I do think there’s much more of an eye on the aesthetics when it comes to shorter travel bikes. Partly because longer travel bikes are so hard to make un-ugly. Especially pedal assist ones.
The thing is, I find that if I enjoy the handling and performance of a bike, I end up liking that it looks too. Cases in point: the Haibike Nduro 7 and Orange Switch 6. Beauties to my eyes. I have no worries about the rather polarising looks of the Lauf Elja.
What would you do?
What short travel bikes have you got your eye on? Where would your priorities and concerns lie if you were building up a Downcountry bike? What have I got wrong so far? Post your comments below!
p.s. you can read our review of the Lauf Elja in the upcoming issue 162 of Singletrack Magazine (on sale August)
Went though exactly this earlier on in the year. Having discounted plenty of XC bargains because of the stupidly low front end and after flirting heavily with a Specialized Epic I ended up with a Transition Spur, which is lovely.
120mm 35mm Sids, XT groupo, not too long dropper, light wheels, carbon bars and a Nobby Nic / Racing Ralph combo keep it a long way from my bigger bike and perfect for big days out. The light weight makes mile munching easy but I agree it makes more aggressive stuff a bit interesting! That’s what the other bike if for though.
How about one of the new Fox 34 SL models?
Forgot to say that I considered single pot brakes but went with Hope Tech 4, E4’s as they were not much heavier and look pretty!
Not sure 200mm rotors would be the way to go, I’ve gone 160 front and rear as on a short travel bike I think you only need to slow down when riding not come to an instant stop, and the tyres will give up on traction long before you get to the brakes limit
More powerful brakes but smaller rotors. My Epic came with G2’s but I swapped to Code RSC and kept the rotor size the same. Weight increase was not much more than going to bigger rotors. Kind of riding I do on that bike I’m not going overheat brakes, but do like the extra bite of the codes.
Sorry, I don’t quite get this? Because it’s so light?
Also, I’d agree you won’t need 203mm rotors on that – again because of the weight.
CCDB Air IL rear shock offers all the adjustability, but is a little less perky than the mainstream alternatives (giving much more grip instead).
Are you sure you won’t end up wishing you’d just got a short-travel trail bike like the Spur instead though?
I really liked the idea of a nice light ‘downcountry’ bike but in my heart I know I don’t have the talent to pull it off. So I bought one of those discounted Orange Stage Evo frames and built it lightish, most notably light wheels. I recon Orange have absolutely nailed the geometry on that bike, at least in the size medium for me at 5’8”. The simple suspension definitely makes it feel fast, especially pedaling over anything choppy. It is a great contrast to the 160mm Edit MX I bought more recently.
I did have a go on a Lauf fork many years ago. It was very light for a suspension fork and I like the maintenance schedule but I can’t imagine buying one
Yeah, I don’t understand this line either. The bike may weight a couple of kilos less than a trail bike, but as a percentage of the total mass of bike and rider rolling along the trail, it’s a pretty insignificant difference.
Or did you mean that the suspension characteristics meant that momentum was harder to keep through terrain with lots of small hits?
Ha, that’s very much me. As much as the idea of a lighter downcountry bike appeals to me, I personally ‘need’ the 140/120 travel of my short-travel trail bike. Lack of rider competency for sure although partly it’s also because in a ‘your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash’ way, it eggs me on to ride it faster than my abilities allow.
Same as…
i realised my Top Fuel was starting to encroach on my banshee spitfire..
so i chucked a gnarlier tyre on the front and took it to surrey hills… i nearly died… more than once…
the Top Fuel is now retired back to mostly wheels on the ground rides without too much steeps
I think people are taking this “Downcountry" thing a little too far and trying to make it into something it is not…
It started as a way to describe bikes that you would use for a race such as the Downieville Classic or the like, where you want the speed and efficiency on the climbs of a purebred XC bike, but you want it to be a little more surefooted descending than a typical lightweight XC bike (back when XC bikes all had 100mm max travel and 32mm stanchioned forks etc.)… A contemporary XC bike but with a beefier fork, decent length dropper post, wider bars, shorter stem and grippier tyres… Which is basically where modern XC bikes are on the whole in 2025 anyway now!
Creating a niche within a niche… Do we really need it? There’s good reason that shorter travel bikes typically still have slightly steeper head angles (still slacker than they used to) and shorter reach figures (though still longer than they used to) compared to a Trail or Enduro bike. Those being that shorter travel forks don’t compress as much, thus the angles don’t change so much under compression, and faster rolling tyres don’t tend to have the same grip/edge bite of a beefier more knobbly tyre, so actually need a bit more weight on them to make them bite into the terrain more readily…
EVERYTHING is a compromise… IMO applying the super LLS mantra to a 120ish travel bike @ 12kg or so is going to make for something that doesn’t really handle or turn particularly well, and whilst it might be rocketship fast descendingin a straight line compared to a purebred XC bike, it will have too many compromises elsewhere to make it worthwhile…
My “Downcountry" bike (purchased/built in 2020 FWIW) for posterity… Yes it could do with a slacker HA than the 69deg it currently has (got a -2 angleset to go in there) but otherwise it’s spot on… An XC bike with wide bars, short stem, decent dropper post and a slightly beefier/longer travel fork…
http://bit.ly/3I4UlHK
So a trail bike? 🤣
Bonkers isn’t it.
Well, people started calling all-mountain bikes trail bikes, so something had to give 😀
I bought a 2019 Tallboy CC Frame & Shock earlier this year, slightly overforked it with 120mm SID Selects and built it up light-ish but not fragile (Hunt XC wheels, XT 1×11, 2.4 Forekaster V2’s, OneUp Dropper) and I blimmin’ love it.
I’ve since fitted the Slackr Headset from my Yeti ARC and so it’s now morphed into a 66deg HA, 120/100mm travel fairly light XC/Trail/Downcountry/whatever bike and it’s even better. Basically what I’ve created is probably the same as if Santa Cruz had released it this year (and not gone Mullet) instead of 6 years ago.
I’m sold on the principle, not fussed what it’s called 😀
Sounds like you want a Cotic Flare max.
Is that not a Blur?
I rode that era of Tallboy 3 for a few years. 110mm rear with a 130 Pike, I tried it at 140 but was too much. Was considering the SlackR headset but changed the whole frame instead. Brilliant, brilliant bike apart from the too-slack STA for me, exacerbated in my XL size and large extension of seatpost.
And current Tallboy 5 is still a full 29er, 130/120 belter of a bike. Even better IMO with 140 fork although 37mm stanchions and a piggyback shock are probably overkill:
I’d probably get a Specialised Chisel, they seem light and XCesque enough for what I want. I’ll be honest, I really don’t get Downcountry tho. But then trail bikes have 150mm on the back these days. Isn’t that Enduro territory? I guess it was a few years back. Give it 5 years and all the Enduro bikes will be 200mm…
I also went the route of a cheap Orange Stage Evo frame with 130mm Fox 34s up front and some Stans Arch/Hope pro5 wheels. It climbs and rolls really well but isn’t out of its depth when things get steep or techy.
Before that I was on a long travel hardtail (Sonder Carbon Transmiter) which I think is an ideal “down country" bike. However, whilst it was great for a couple of hours, longer rides beat me up. The switch from 27.5″ to 29″ wheels was probably the second biggest difference after comfort.
@a11y sorry, had a brainfart! It is indeed a Blur CC, I had originally tried to find a Tallboy but this came up and got slightly modded instead!
@jfab I’m prone to those 😀
A riding buddy has the current Blur TR and it’s a lovely take on the down country style of bike. Same HTA as the Kona Stinky DH bike he had back in the day, apparently – progress!