... makes it a fair bit easier doesn't it!
OK, that may be a bit of a mundane insight, so to put it in perspective...
I've been riding fully rigid mtb's for the past four years, but thought I'd get some sus forks to see what I feel like on a hardtail now; just some low end Rockshox Recon 29ers with 100mm travel.
A few other things:
I was no faster (it took me about 1hr 10mins to get around the Gisburn red, same as normal)
Obviously my wrists took much less of a beating. But What really surprised me was how much less I had to work my legs. I guess 100mm travel at the front gives about 35mm travel at the BB, and even that seemed to massively reduce how much impact I had to adsorb with my legs.
I felt a lot less aware of how close I was to properly loosing control as I do with rigid forks.
I'm surprised at how surprised I am at all of this, given I spent my late teens on 7" travel freeride bikes
Got some second hand 29" Recons going on a winter bike build.
How did you find them in general mate?
I'm not looking for Pike performance... Just something to allow for some of my poor line choices and to take the sting out of hits that really knacker my neck and back!
Strava is always very revealing in this dept. Next to no difference on my full bouncer/Ht and rigid bike on quite a few lumpy dh segments to a point. Always feels more dramatic rigid and I feel far more beaten on longer rides.
The big difference for me is having a front wheel that tracks the ground when cornering. Saying that I'm a lot quicker around Whinlatter on my rigid SS than my 140/120 trail bike. Although that could be gears making me soft.
Yep, I reckon the pros and cons of rigid vs. hardtail vs. full suss kind of cancel out on many rides, unless it is all super-techy.
As for the Recon's ppsp: they felt pretty damn good to me for such a cheap fork, but I'd say I'm a terrible source of info having not ridden any other forks produced in the past 5 years!
4 years fully rigid? Sounds like me, between the ages of 12 and 16.
Cheers for the info op. Fingers crossed!👍
1hr 10 round the full '8' 18km loop?
1hr 10 round the full ‘8’ 18km loop?
Yep, the full red route
The never ridden FS only the GT hard tail so when this new bike arrives on 3rd it'll be a while new experience on the Pines
I usually take over 2 hours to get round Gisburn, but to be fair there’s usually a couple of runs down the Hope Line and a repeat or 3 of Hully Gully and Long Way Down.
If I just went straight round the red loop I’d feel like I’d missed half the fun. Still pretty sure I’d be a LOT slower than 1hr 10 though.
I can well imagine that on any kind of half decent loop the overall time difference might be small, but there are probably sections where there are big variations...
I usually take over 2 hours to get round Gisburn, but to be fair there’s usually a couple of runs down the Hope Line and a repeat or 3 of Hully Gully and Long Way Down.
If I just went straight round the red loop I’d feel like I’d missed half the fun. Still pretty sure I’d be a LOT slower than 1hr 10 though.
Hmm, I don't know, I would have thought throwing in a run of the Hope Line or rerun of Hully Gully would add an extra 10mins on, so if you do two or three of each that's +40-60mins. A fair amount extra work for sure.
Have to say I really enjoy just lapping the red. My favorite bit isn't even the Hope Line or Hully Gully, it's that singletrack that follows the little stream gorge nearish the end, after the bottom of the Hope Line. So I tend to do one timed racey lap of the red, then another much slower with Hope Line detours.
