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Well, I'm 40 and I have a mini damascus so I very rarely get to go to trail centres or the lakes these days.
My riding is usually from my door around West Yorkshire. I have a specialized stumpjumper 29er with 140 pikes up front.
Most of my friends ride hard tails for most of the riding we do. I have an itch for a hard tail but can't really justify another bike at the moment.
So, it got me thinking, do I still need 140 travel? I was looking at fresh good Friday and the xxxc bikes got me thinking.
Before I got the stumpy I wanted an Orbea Occam 29er. I'm now thinking maybe swopping the frame for a specialized camber.
Have you reduced your travel and regretted it? Does it make mile munching easier? Or should I just buy a hardtail?
Thanks
I went from a 140mm 26” full suss to a 100mm 29er xc weapon. It’s massively more efficient for 90% of the time but I do miss a bit more travel and a slacker head angle occasionally. I’m tempted to move it on and split the different at 120mm but with around 68 deg head angle
At 43 if I think it can hit and jumped I still do that, a hardtail would also break me.
What travel is the Camber, 120mm? Will you notice a difference?
Contrarion view but for the the cost of making the change why not buy a voodoo bizango?
It all depends onto your style of biking and your trails...
Biking with biking pals: some of them have road racing background. When doing mountain biking with them I pick my 29er 130 mm hardtail. Only with the hardtail I'am able to keep up with them. And fast XC biking can be fun!
Biking alone or in the downhill focused group or with the kids (or with the dog): I take my 130/130 bike or 150/150 bike (with 2.6 inch rubber) and have tons of fun then. And I soon will upgrade the 130/130 to 140/130... (there is no age limit for 140 mm forks!)
140mm travel isn’t wild - I think I’d stick with it personally - especially as you are already on 29” wheels.
If it’s more an urge for a new bike, before you jump hardtail only I’d try and borrow or demo one to use on your normal trails. I like using my hardtail on local stuff some weeks to help build my skills some more, but if I were only to have one bike it’d be the fs without a doubt (I use a 170f / 160r bike as my main bike whether it’s for uplift / tech / xc type rides etc).
So maybe to scratch the urge for a new bike look at something around 120mm travel but with decent modern geometry. To make it sufficiently different to your current bike maybe you need to look at something a chunk lighter - although keep the Pikes and just shorten them with a new airshaft. Good opportunity to put a 2019 debonair shaft in for a plusher fork.
Edit - or as above get a cheap 29er hardtail and keep your current bike. The cost of something like a Bizango is probably the same or cheaper than an upgrade frame. Then you’ve got both options dependant on what you’re doing.
You'll buy a hard tail & your mates will then buy full suss!!!
Turn up your damping on the bike you have… and save money for the Islabikes.
Go explore places you've previously discounted to ride and see if there's big things to ride off of that will need 140mm suspension in the landing!
At 43 if I think it can hit and jumped I still do that, a hardtail would also break me.
Hardtails are fine for jumping as long as you can slam the saddle so there's room to use your legs to absorb the impact of landing. Really rough rocky or rooty terrain is where they/you suffer. 43 also (and not good at jumping).
I'm 44 with two young kids (coming up 5 and coming up 3) and ride with a lot of XC types on mainly XC/Trail riding. I swapped the XC bike (carbon Trek Superfly) for a 29er Jeffsy CF with 140mm travel a couple of years ago. It's much more versatile, it's much more comfortable and yes, it's certainly less efficient, but when I do get a couple of hours for a sneaky ride out, it's so much more fun. I loved the Trek, but it really needed me to be on it all the time, which I can't.
Keep the 140mm and learn to bunny hop over your hardtail riding friends if you're not having enough fun 😀
The only reason to swap to a lower travel bike is to gain either lower weight or pedalling efficiency, both of which primarily come from the frame geo rather than directly how much travel that frame has. So, if you're racing, sure, drop travel, but for JRA, i wouldn't bother. If you want a bit more "pop" to make the bike feel more fun, then pump the pressures up and/or fit some tokens and/or ramp up the compression damping a bit!
What about a nice steel HT frame. Something like a Solaris or Sherpa, etc.
Personally, I would say if you're going to have only 1 mountain bike 130-140mm Full Suss is the sweet spot.
I was looking at one of those the other day but was kinda put off by the weight and some reports of it climbing a bit heavy I presume it doesn't bother you howsyourdad
Although tbh my budget was the very basic model with 11 speed and poor wheels so all the money was I the frame which is no bad thing long term but made it look expensive too
“The only reason to swap to a lower travel bike is to gain either lower weight or pedalling efficiency“
Less travel feels different, more immediate, and pumps better.