[Closed] Its a Hardtail life...

Cotic Soul with 140mm fork; I know there are a lot of Cotic fanboys on here but they really are that good.

The 456 will take 4, 5 or 6 inches of travel, hence the name.

Prince Albert,

The 456 will take 4, 5 or 6 inches of travel, hence the name.

I was not aware of that. Every day's a school day.

Sell you my ti456...

Best ever hard tail, fact......

Best ever hard tail, fact......

Why you selling it then?

456 is at its best with 140mm IME. Works well. Not the biggest fan of the handling tbh, that's why I'm selling mine, but they're good solid effective bikes.

Ragleys... Well, I love mine, but it's the Ti- I reckon the others have their shortcomings but you might or might not care. My Mmmbop was just ludicrously stiff, back wheel had a mind of its own, bouncing off rocks all over the place... And the Pig is hefty and IMO a wee bit dead feeling like heavy steel frames can be. But the geometry is ace- descends brilliantly, but also a fantastic stood-up climber.

Still getting to know my Ti but so far, might well be the best hardtail I've had. It's going to be competing with a Soul and a Soda though so quite hard competition.

ive seen a DN6 on one inbred will that take a 140 ?

Why you selling it then?

Wrong size wheels innit 😉

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Sovereign earlier. Although you can only get them second hand nowadays.

Its just a fad. 😉

chris_mbuk - Member

ive seen a DN6 on one inbred will that take a 140 ?

Inbred is now warrantied up to 120mm. But tbh it's more an XC frame. (the DN6 part is just On One's name for their cromo tubing, doesn't mean anything)

If you're looking at On One, then the 456 is going to be the correct choice for you.

Its just a fad

Duty bound to throw a BFe into the mix.

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Another Cotic fanboy here, get a BFe it sounds spot on for what you want. Im not a fan of the 456, the EVO might be a different beast and I'm sure the Ti feels totally different.

Yep. It's all I ever bang on about on this here forum but the correct answer to 'what 140mm hardtail' is Evil Sovereign - best handling rad HT ever made. Stanton Slackline and Cotic BFe are viable alternatives, 456 if you're on a tight budget.

These are facts.

Its just a fad 😉

It's not! Once my Solaris has a dropper post (waiting for Thompson) it will be all the bike I ever need

Evil Sovereign - best handling rad HT ever made

hmm ive no idea.. cotic bfe u say?

I rate my BFe on par if not slightly better than my 853 Sov. Both are streets ahead of the 456 I had in the middle, all three have pretty much the same build so I can't put it down to that for the different feeling.

How impolite of me - forgot the obligatory pic of my Sov. Mine is shortly to be retired with its bits being transferred to my new big bike but it has done sterling service as my only bike for the last 3 years...
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I've not owned any of the other bikes mentioned but I LOVE my Cotic BFe

I do everything on this one bike; XC, Jumps, Drops, Black runs at Cannock Chase, Downhill stuff and anything and everything in between.

It simply copes - it has 140mm travel Fox FLOAT forks and a 3x9 Shimano SLX drivetrain 8)

looks pretty cool ill look more into these thx

Mine is shortly to be retired

Are you selling it?

Prince Albert.
Best bike I've ever ridden.
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A guy I ride with has a Pipedream Sirius and he shames us on everything with that bike.

Surely a Cotic Bfe must be worth a serious look! Their fork range is from 100mm all the way up to 160mm so they'll do just about anything. Either that or a Ragley Blue Pig but I'm not sure if they're quite as versatile. Both fantastic bikes though!

I've had a pig for nearly 3 years now and love it,ridden allsorts of different stuff on it.
that said I keep looking a full bouncers. Threads like this keep me thinking I'll be wasting my money!!

what's up with your alpine, i love mine?

You could buy a nice Transition Transam frame off me...

Isn't the Alpine the sort of bike you want?

Maybe he means Orange, not Dialled.

Are you selling it?

Don't think so, due to a combination of the fact that I still love it and the fact that it is all but worthless - it's had quite a hard life - a few dings, damaged dropouts, drilled out/ chopped off cable guides, repainted, cracked, re-welded and re cracked. I'd flog it if someone offered me an outrageous sum, but that would be pretty daft of them.
I see a future life for it as a rugged singlespeed thrasher...

I'd probably say Cotic Bfe as they are £300. Or a carbon 456 if you want the lightest long travel hardtail in the budget range I think you are looking at.

Three years and 6 LT hardtails since I had it and I still think it was the best
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re-welded and re cracked

Really O_o ! Where did you get a crack and how hard was it to get it fixed?

For the sort of riding you're describing, its sounds like you want a short travel hardtail.

Blimey so many great bikes to choose from.

My Mmmbop was just ludicrously stiff, back wheel had a mind of its own, bouncing off rocks all over the place..

The mmmbop is just so much fun though because it is a handful. Being so stiff and light it feels so fast when you stomp on the pedals. Also great on the downs with the slack angles. Brought it on a bit of a hardtail whim and hated it at first, it took me a while to work out how to get the best out of it but now I absolutely love it.

Also you might find yourself reconsidering the 140 fork once you've had a hardtail for a while. Got a 150 rev on the mmmbop but run it at 120 pretty much all the time. Not that convinced about big forks on a trail hardtail.

Its got to be a Cotic Soul. Ive ridden an Orange Crush for the last 3 years and a '12 Five this year. I'll be buying a Soul at some point and building it up over a period of time. I've got other priorities right now so it'll probably take a while, but its ging to happen.

Where did you get a crack and how hard was it to get it fixed?

Managed to crack it at the headtube/ downtube join on one side - not really sure how, just general use. It was really really tiny crack (maybe 5-6mm).

I took the paint surrounding it off with a wire brush, keyed in a little groove with a dremel and took it to a local metal fabricators - they put a tidy little TIG weld over the crack FOC, but unfortunately the crack has reappeared through the weld - it's still tiny, and I've ridden it very hard with no apparent ill effects so far but it's clearly not ideal. I still feel like I got my money's worth out of the frame though.

If you want something that leans towards the XC side of doing most things (i.e. it's lighter and less stiff than the heavyweight hardtails but still has great geometry for descending and having maximum fun, strong enough for proper ragging but just isn't tough enough to withstand repeated big crashes if you're into dirtjumping or have a habit of casing big gaps), then I highly recommend one of these:

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Just something to note and I clarified this before I did it. The 456 carbon IS warrentied upto 160mm travel fork. (6.3")

I run mine with a fox 160mm and it rides so well imo. Though it does look and feel really slack so if your not comfortable using such a long travel fork a rs pike sits atleast 1 degree steeper.

Stanton Slackline 853?

the most fun I've had in a long time, 150mm fork with a short back end, 50mm stem 760mm bars an absolute hoot....... hardly touched the FS since.

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A 17" Cove Stiffee? I've had this for three years and its great fun to ride. I'm selling now though as I fancied a change (I opted for a Ti Holeshot). Haven't got around to doing an ad' for it yet, but yours for £530 posted. Let me know if interested (email address in profile) and I'll provide all details you need.
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how much jamest ??

Blue Pig Mk2?

http://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/1215319/

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NS Surge

Merlin malt4
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So the best hardtail in the world (its a 'fact' apparently) cracked for no apparent reason? OK...

I'm a big fan of hardtails but I can't see where you'd have more fun on one over a full susser. For the money, I'd be looking at the 456 Evo - similar to my old 456 Summer Season which although made from scaffolding pipe was still an absolute blast to ride.

Spending more, a BFe (my old Soul, whilst being a different beast, was awesome so I'd expect the BFe to be as good). I don't think you really have to spend more than that...

As above, the answer to this question is ALWAYS the Evil Sovereign- get thee to ebay/the classifieds and find one. Mine is nearly 6 years old now. I've never kept a bike this long, and will keep it forever. Ridden it to death, it's very fast, lots of fun, very versatile and I've seen Fortunateson go from OK-ish XC rider to chuffing fast in 4 years because of that bike. It loves technical trails, instils massive amounts of confidence and just makes everything better. Also good for mucking about round the dirt jumps and skate park. You can slam the chainstays for arsing about or stretch them out for fast stuff.

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I think the only real new alternative is the Stanton Slackline, or possibly a BFe.

As for FS's cracking, he has taken it downhilling in the Alps, done the Megavalanche on it, the Macavalanche, the Fort William Enduro DH and countless big Scottish mountains. What he means by "general riding" is not STW for "general riding". For a 5 year old frame that's not a bad run.

I'm having a fling with a little Ragley Mmmbop at the moment.

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The Fox 36 forks have been shortened to 130mm travel as I've found any more fork travel is too much for the frame... the bottom bracket gets higher and the seat angle slacker on any hardtail frame with a long fork, and at a certain fork length the ride is compromised (IMHO IMHE etc etc).

It's an awesome wee bike and I don't find the reported stiffness a problem. I had Revelation forks on a larger Mmmbop and I found the lack of stiffness with them was a problem (and I burst them inside).

For hooning on a hardtail I think it better to run a stiffer fork at the correct travel for the frame than ram on an overlong fork to "improve how it handles the downhills", but which compromises how the bike handles.

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Sov ran with 36s with travel reduced, hammerschmit and the eagle eyed will spot 650b wheels in this pic.

Great bike.... rarely ride anything else at the moment.

mmmBop's are indeed awsome. Bit of a gate but I love it. Here's mine...

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Edit: Those sov's do look good. What's happened to Evil, they still making them?

Oh, go on then. If we really must have an Evil love-in:
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I've loved it from the first moment I rode it. So much so that I sold my FS after having it for a few months. It manages a weird mix of always feeling playful, [i]almost[/i] to the point of feeling dangerous, and yet confidence inspiring at that same time. It might not be the fastest at all things but it is by far the most fun, most versatile, bike I've ever owned.

Those sov's do look good. What's happened to Evil, they still making them?

No, Evil is still making bikes but they stopped producing the Sovereign and do not plan do produce new ones at the moment. This actually make them even more precious :-). You can get a second or third hand if you try hard enough I think, but not easy.

@Mbnut : nicely built bike! I love how the white Fox matches the frame color.

Thanks Barkit, it is a joy to ride and I love the fact i can throw in the bigger wheels for some rides.

Love the fact i can change how it feels by playing with the dropouts and i have ran a Rev U turn on it and played with the ride height that way too... have learnt alot about geo and bb height by experimenting... if i ever get rich i'll being getting some custom Sov clones built i reckon...

I see a bit of love for the MMbop, a mate runs one and loves it but for me it was just too brutally stiff outback... probably the bike that sent me down the road of steel!

I see a bit of love for the MMbop, a mate runs one and loves it but for me it was just too brutally stiff outback... probably the bike that sent me down the road of steel!

It does punish poor line choice 😉 Find I really have to ride the front fork, makes it a lot of fun.

These threads pop up quite often. I own a C456 - frames can be as low as £300 from O-One - pretty amazing for a LTHT that weighs 1.5kg!!

The Cotic Bfe is always popular amongst the steel aficionados, but a little more expensive.

The Prince Albert and evil sovereign, also get great reviews.

You seem to be in the same position as me, whereas it's not your only bike. That for me was why the amazing price of the C456 pushed it to the top of my list. I have also lent it to a mate when his Yeti 575 needed carbon surgery, and he was gushing about it too! I run mine 2x10 with a 150 Revelation.

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The 456c is a cracking frame... this one is a 16'' which I bought to build for my son but decided the tt was too long for him as he is only 5'6''... it's for sale @ £200... sorry for thread hi jack...

Ended up building him a Cove Handjob which is a great little bike, compliant rear end which i wanted for him.

Mr Blobby... you make a fair point... 😀

Buzz... have just emailled a frame builder re a project i've been thinking about... this thread could well end up costing me a fortune!!

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Blue pig? Hmm no, drop outs and cable guides aren't the same.

Now suspecting it's an older surge, but when did it have that big gusset by the head tube?

Just put my Evil Sovereign MK2 up for sale, brilliant bike!

http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/fs-evil-sovereign-nukeproof-headset-m-270-posted