[Closed] Alternative geometry rigid MTBs

I think weight is one of the last things on the mind of people making bikes like this!

https://nsmb.com/articles/personal-rides-andrews-custom-waltworks-v2/

https://www.jonesbikes.com/bicycles/

I don't mean weight as in the weight of the frame, I mean the balance of rider weight between the wheels

fundamentally you ride a rigid fork differently to a suspension fork, it seems to ride them fast down steeps / tech you need to put less weight on the front wheel than you would get away with on a suspension fork.

Therefore a frame which moves the front wheel forwards to reduce the weight on it may be desirable. The wheel might need to go further forward than with a suspension fork - so you kinda need a custom fork without going to ridiculously slack HA and then come into problems with flop and trail. The Stooge mk4 does this by designing around a big rake fork.

Seemingly the stooge does have a load of unnecessary weight in the twin top tubes and bi plane fork and a lighter frame with the same geo might be easier to lift over gates and fences.....

Jones doesn't publish geo charts which is weird.

“The Stooge mk4 does this by designing around a big rake fork.“

So do the Jones bikes. I’m guessing Jeff doesn’t publish geometry charts because even without them being available he gets enough imitators!

The truss forks are a good idea if you’re intending to ride hard - the amount of flex on any single crown fork when seen in slo-mo is pretty scary.

Love the look of the bike in the pic, would liek to try that.

The Surly Krampus was in its day, though the HA of 69 degrees seems old fashioned now.
7 (or was it 8?) years ago the idea of a rigid hardtail designed to be taken fast over and down stuff was quite groundbreaking. Add to that the invention of 29+ wheels then Surly seems pretty forward thinking.

I'd like to see an experiment where 2 bikes are compared with a stretched out wheelbase (e.g. PVD's bike up there), one slack like PVD's the other traditional HA, but equal wheelbase. The steep HA bike would need a really long top tube and it may be difficult to get it stiff enough without using carbon.

fundamentally you ride a rigid fork differently to a suspension fork, it seems to ride them fast down steeps / tech you need to put less weight on the front wheel than you would get away with on a suspension fork.

Not sure what this senetence means. I put more weight on the front of my rigid bike because it won't dive. Although I can't ride anything round here fast on rigid - just too rough. I like rigid because it's better for riding and climbing on medium to smooth trails, I have 2 FSs for going fast.

What is the stem on that PeterVerdone bike? Want one for my Stooge

I want that whole bike!

I've just realised what makes it look so strange, it's the 390mm seat tube length, with the 29+ tyres - there's not many bikes with the seat tube below the wheels.

What is the stem on that PeterVerdone bike? Want one for my Stooge

Some sort of top mount BMX stem I'd say.

Doesn't look dissimilar to a Funn Funnduro stem:

*edit* actually quite different! But that's the closest MTB stem I can think of.

Found it!
Von Sothen Racing Stem
$70 though! and out of stock 🙁

Good work ajontom. Maybe a tad short anyway at 26 mm reach!!!. I'm on a 50 mm at the moment and fancy trying a 40 mm

The Ragley TD1 was rigid-specific. Also the original Genesis Fortitude, which had a slacker (69ish - not that slack now) HTA and lower offset fork to get the trail number and weight balance about 'right'.

From what I remember of the Mk1 Stooge when there was a drawing on the website, the front end (HTA and fork offset combo) was the same as a Jones though the Stooge was shown with a bigger 29+ front tyre lifting it up which slackened it off a bit. You get the same numbers from the original Jones bike with a 29+ tyre in the front. The Jones is much shorter overall though. Very easy to get off the back of, I know what you mean about less weight on the front. It's very easy to move weight around on a bike like that and quite different to riding a long reach bike where there's a longer sweet-spot for your weight and it works better with greater weight shifts. Not such a popular way to set a bike up now, it works though.

Add to that the invention of 29+ wheels then Surly seems pretty forward thinking.

One of a few things they've done that I expect they'd credit Jeff Jones' influence in. Jeff was on the biggest 29 tyres and rims available for a while before others really saw the benefits but it takes QBP's volumes to create a tyre range.

The Ragley TD1 was rigid-specific. Also the original Genesis Fortitude, which had a slacker (69ish – not that slack now) HTA and lower offset fork to get the trail number and weight balance about ‘right’.

It would need a higher offset fork to correct the trail shirley

Slacker HA reduces trail so you need a bigger offset to "correct" that. Hence the stooge 80mm offset.

I'm just interested in how people push the boundaries when freed from "industry standards" of suspension fork and fork offset. PVD makes his own bars/stems too to free his designs from those constraints too.

But apart from PVD and stooge nobody seems to be doing it much, probably there is no market for these bikes.

Yeah you are gonna go faster on an FS bike, but faster is not everything. Fast can be a lot of fun on the right rigid bike too.

Jeff Jones no geo chart? well why would I buy one or try one if don't know what i'm buying or trying? i'm trying to understand the nuances in geo for rigid riding, no geo chart makes that very difficult. If anyone wanted to "copy" his geo, they could just measure it from a frame or even just a photograph!

Good work ajontom. Maybe a tad short anyway at 26 mm reach!!!. I’m on a 50 mm at the moment and fancy trying a 40 mm

His philosophy is to put you on the shortest stem, and lengthen the frame to provide an appropriate reach.

A long front centre is everything, whilst keeping the head angle sane.

Actually he likes to fit to a 50mm stem, then you have an inch to reduce if the riding style changes.

Loving these bikes. My trail / xc is an inbred 29er and when I bought it it was considered a long top tube but I ideally wanted it a fair bit longer and a lower top tube. I hadn't considered headangle but look like I was on the right track, Shane I couldn't get it back then.

You can find difference between old Jones 29 and the newer SWB here https://www.jonesbikes.com/jones-plus-swb/ similar angles and rake to stooge mk3 and I believe the Jones LWB has same angles and rake as stooge mk4. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The Ragley TD1 was rigid-specific. Also the original Genesis Fortitude, which had a slacker (69ish – not that slack now) HTA and lower offset fork to get the trail number and weight balance about ‘right’.

Loved my TD-1, not quite sure why I sold it. Made an awesome ss.

Pinnacle Ramin 3 plus another awesome rigid bike no longer made...

From what I've been seeing, the most progressive off-the-peg rigid bike, at the moment, seems to be the Kona Unit, which looks very similar to Andrew Major's V1 Waltworks.
It appears that the Bootzipper falls almost exactly between the Kona and my old geo Karate Monkey. I think there's still a lot to be said for the older KM, but there are too many work-arounds needed for dropper use, plus TA's would be nice.
Peter Verdone is definitely pushing the rigid envelope though. His more recent rigid bike has some very interesting innovation regarding the stem/bar position, though I'm not sure how this would filter through into the mainstream.
There certainly seems to be a lot of rigid and singlespeed noise bubbling around at the moment.

Not super slack at 67, but currently on sale for 399 Euro

https://nordestcycles.com/en/product/sardinha-frame

That PVD bike is lovely an all, but with such a slack head tube and only 50mm rake, the steering must be a bit rubbish, no? I'm sure it's very stable down the steeps though! And why such a slack and short seat tube?

Please don't ask PVD for the answers.....

The chainstays are really short, so the effective seat tube isn't as slack as the (bent to clear the rear wheel) actual seat tube looks. And he insists that huge droppers are essential hence the short tube. And his is the perfect tube bend and all other bends are useless. And all droppers have to be xx diameter and blah blah blah nothing else is valid and you just aren't worthy of his greatness.... http://www.peterverdone.com/the-right-way-to-build-and-spec-bent-seat-tubes/

It would need a higher offset fork to correct the trail shirley

Depends how you want to correct it / what's 'correct'? The Fortitude set up gives a long trail stable bike with a shortish stem, without pushing the front wheel out too far in front relative to the bar ie you didn't actively need to weigh the front too much, could ride it 'light' but not twitchy.

And he insists that huge droppers are essential hence the short tube.

They kind of are, if you want to corner a geometry like that well : )

Jeff Jones no geo chart? well why would I buy one or try one if don’t know what i’m buying or trying? i’m trying to understand the nuances in geo for rigid riding, no geo chart makes that very difficult.

I like his style.. There's no way you can predict how his bike rides from the numbers imho/ime. You'd get more from reading about them or talking to him about them - the numbers might even put you off if you made assumptions based on other more conventional bikes. Took me a while to really get used to riding mine, to learn new habits. Well worth it for how well the bike suits the local riding I do most often.

I should just rigid my 2020 torrent. It will be nuts.

the amount of flex on any single crown fork when seen in slo-mo is pretty scary.

Only if you have no idea how materials react to loading. If you find that scary I recommend never looking at a planes wings during takeoff or a ships companionway in rough seas.

Not sure what this senetence means. I put more weight on the front of my rigid bike because it won’t dive. Although I can’t ride anything round here fast on rigid – just too rough.

I'd suggest the latter is the fault of the former. I used to rip down heavily rutted cow fields and rooty woods on my old Diamondback ATB as a kid on 1.9s by keeping my weight well off the bars save to hold course. That's the technique that everyone seems to have forgotten and instead look to bikes with geometry based on the Jahre Viking to "solve".

I'm not saying those bikes don't have their place but they're by no means the only way.

But apart from PVD and stooge nobody seems to be doing it much, probably there is no market for these bikes.

I'll sound like a fan (I am) but the Jones LWB deserves to be on a list there. Influential and original bike. Another bike that rode very differently to what I expected, felt far more agile at times. He seems to sell some reasonable numbers of them.

the amount of flex on any single crown fork when seen in slo-mo is pretty scary.

Only if you have no idea how materials react to loading. If you find that scary I recommend never looking at a planes wings during takeoff or a ships companionway in rough seas.

This is true, though when people talk about +/-5mm offset and the difference it makes, yet the fork flexes back more than that under braking load ... ok so you're not steering under hard braking but that flex is still something we just get used to. the Jones Truss is a real eye-opener in what a rigid bike can handle. You only realise how precise it is when going back to a sus fork (XC 32-34s more than a bigger fork).

Lol, all my forks are 32s and none are XC spec. Funny how these things change.

“Only if you have no idea how materials react to loading. If you find that scary I recommend never looking at a planes wings during takeoff or a ships companionway in rough seas.”

I’m perfectly aware how materials react to loading but I was using a degree of hyperbole to point out an issue which clearly has a significant effect on handling, rather than talking about the obvious advantage in force vectors and resulting torques around a dual crown fork vs a single crown.

It’s not hard for a relatively aware rider to detect a change in head angle of one degree or a change in fork offset of 10mm. But the stiffest single crown suspension forks flex more than that in use and that will clearly affect how the bike feels. With a rigid fork you have no squish or damping to disguise how fork distortion in any axis is affecting steering behaviour and handling, and there’s also an argument that precise steering is even more critical when you can’t just hold on and hope your suspension travel will let you ride straight over everything.

2020 Kona Unit/Unit X doesn't look a million miles from that.

I love a good rigid bike, the way the geo doesn't change when riding steep drops as well as the climbing efficiency.
I had this custom built just over three years ago, I think it would still qualify as a fairly progressive rigid bike today...

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It's by far the most capable rigid bike for full on techy, steep trails I've ever ridden. With a 3.00 x 29 Minion on the front it will charge through rough terrain at a rate no rigid bike has any right to.
I also have a Singular Swift, and a Bootzipper (both currently for sale if anyones looking) and there's really no comparison.
Looking at the Stooge MK4, I haven't ridden one but that looks like it should be a lot of fun. The geometry is getting so much better.
A slack HA and correct rake mean that it is very capable downhill while still steering nicely on flatter terrain

As others have mentioned above, there's always a balance between weighting the front wheel and not smashing your wrists to pieces on a rigid bike. Despite the likes of Peter Verdone spouting his nonsense, nobody has it 100% right. It's always a compromise.

In the three years since building this bike, I have changed my thinking slightly, and would do it a little differently today.
The main thing being that keeping that weight over the front wheel can be done more with the feet than the hands if the balance between the axles is right.
I've read Jeff Jones musing on this, and PVD makes a lot of sense on the subject too, but as above, nobody has it 100%. PVD is hard to read sometimes as he comes across as such a massive, massive bellend, but I love the work he does.

I’d suggest the latter is the fault of the former. I used to rip down heavily rutted cow fields and rooty woods on my old Diamondback ATB as a kid on 1.9s by keeping my weight well off the bars save to hold course. That’s the technique that everyone seems to have forgotten and instead look to bikes with geometry based on the Jahre Viking to “solve”.

In my experience rigid is rigid. When you get to really rough terrain the geometry is not going to help, it is still a rigid bike. Geometry clearly makes a difference with handling, and also making going downhill or uphill easier or harder but it won't smooth out a very rough trail.

I have to use a fair bit of techinque to ride my track geometry bike off road (especially steep downhills) but again technique doesn't make the bike comfortable and doesn't really make it any faster because it is still a rigid bike.

bedmaker
PVD is hard to read sometimes as he comes across as such a massive, massive bellend

He is that, but I suspect it's his on-line persona.

What he does do though is put his money where his mouth is, and not only rides the sort of bikes he prescribes, but also builds them.

In discussions about bike geometry I always bear in mind that people ride unicycles, so you'll probably find people who can argue for any style of geometry and it will be right - for them.

The ability to change your body's CoG has more bearing than any other factor IMO.

I think the comments on having weight in the right position on a rigid to protect hands are bang on. Jeff Jones and stooge have the same angles but I think the main difference is that the Jones has longer chain stays and a shorter reach, this helps that more centralised, upright position which probably helps with steep climbs and makes it more stable on descents, though maybe less agile.

You can almost gain this position on the stooge having a shorter stem and rotating the EBB to the front ime.

@bedmaker

I had this custom built just over three years ago

Have you got a geo chart + what you would do differently?

I stuck a carbon rigid fork in my signal and it's surprisingly capable and comfortable. There was someone on here with a Solarismax and rigid fork which looked rather radical.

Mk.1 Surly Instigator with Krampus forks. Was a hoot to ride, but the Stooge then scratched the itch properly!

Geometry is -
HA 63
SA 75.5
Reach 450
Chainstay 440
BB drop 60

Fork has 100mm offset.
This gives mechanical trail and wheel flop figures very close to stuff already known to work.
The slack HA along with the large offset means the wheel sits way out in front and gives a feeling of invincibility on really steep ground, steering is still good though.

Doing it again today, I would -
Lengthen the reach to 500 and use a tiny stem.
Steepen the HA a bit and use less bonkers fork.
Put sliders on to allow chainstay length adjustment from 435-455.

Jeff Jones and stooge have the same angles but I think the main difference is that the Jones has longer chain stays and a shorter reach, this helps that more centralised, upright position which probably helps with steep climbs and makes it more stable on descents, though maybe less agile.

The Jones is probably the most agile mountain bike I've ridden, maybe inc the little HTs that were so much fun in the 97-2003 era. It's only the big wheels that stop it feeling as darty as a Chameleon or down-sized Kona did then. It made me realise that a short chainstay isn't anywhere near the factor that it's made out to be. The bar to rear axle dimension is important as that's what limits how far off the rear wheel you can get your weight - where your feet are / BB is relative to the axle influences the balance but it's something you adapt to easily. A bike with good F-R balance that is shorter overall takes less input or weight shift to influence. Pros and cons to that, and you can't get up steep climbs on the Jones geo in the saddle as easily as a longer bike but the pay off is very natural, agile handling on anything flowy or technical.

Bedmaker, the great thing about your bike is that it did look OTT, and if a bike like that's not OTT you won't know if you've gone too far or far enough.

I loved my Jones spaceframe with 29er wheels on and with a 4.3 fat front same diameter as 29er but wasnt so keen with a 29er plus on the front, but

When I came to need to sell a bike I sold the Jones as it just wasnt THAT much better than my pinnalce ramin plus for my needs

But a year later I did go see the main man at stooge for a spin on a speedball and tbh wasnt sold, but he let me have a quick spin on the stooge 3 27.5plus and it was bloody lovely feeling, if I get chance to buy one of those it would probably be the only thing that might replace my ramin, or more likely sit next to it lol

I should have grabbed one when I was there but I wasnt certain, I do miss the Jones too lol

Apologises for my covid ramblings I'm still recovering

GWS Mick : )

When I came to need to sell a bike I sold the Jones as it just wasnt THAT much better than my pinnalce ramin plus for my needs

I remember test riding the samples of that bike on B+ wheels and being both really happy that it was as much fun as my Jones, and disappointed that my expensive posh bike was only subtly better in some ways : ) Different set ups but similar results. There are times when I realise just how good the Jones combo of stiff fork and f wheel, balance and geometry is but I have to push it hard to get there and it's usually one of those *fk-sht-fk-spot where I'm going to hit the deck but then ride out of it* split second things. And when you see how some people can ride the Jones it does put things in perspective, I'm not at that level of riding.

Thanks mate 😉

The ramin is ace and like you say it's only occasionally but the thing i do miss I think is the truss fork

I'd have liked to tried a Jones diamond with truss and without truss just to see how different it felt and how the diamond compared to the spaceframe

But at the current time I'm just dreaming of riding the ramin when I'm up to it

I would love to see more footage of people really pushing modern rigid bikes. There are a few videos along the "rigid-bike-on-EWS-course" lines, but always comparing a modern enduro bike to a something like a 25 year old, base model GT.

Bedmaker - this is what I'm talking about! big reach, 63 ha, short fork with 100mm offset, would love to have a go.

Loads of people posting pics of bikes designed for off the shelf suspension forks / conventional rigid forks - thats not what I'm looking for. Equally I have a 1995 Orange P7 with F7 rigid forks, 2" tyres and a 120mm stem, thats definitely not what I'm after....

Bedmaker's bike would be awful with an off the peg fork, the bike has been designed from the ground up to be rigid with the frame and fork as a system.

Systems thinking without the constraints of convention or off the peg parts!

Well it seems Jones is the pioneer of what I'm talking about, theres just not many others and I'm surprised!

I really loved my Jones. It was my only mountainbike for 2 years.

but I sold it with the intention of building something better.

I loved the body position with those bars and the weight balance between the wheels. It made it the perfect mile-muncher. And the feel of the truss fork was awesome.

It was utterly terrible in rock gardens and landing big jumps at speed though. It just got in trouble way too easily. I think it was the relatively short mechanical trail.

Maybe I'll get around to making a better one someday.

I have a stooge mark 4 and a gen 1 cotic flare max.

The cotic is a great bike and I really like it but the stooge handles better. It's more fun and surprisingly confidence inspiring on steep stuff. The trail has to get quite rough for the cotic to be faster.

I think everyone should try a progressive rigid bike, it's an eye opener.

Bedmaker’s bike would be awful with an off the peg fork, the bike has been designed from the ground up to be rigid with the frame and fork as a system.

Yes.
I tried it with a couple of off the shelf forks with 50mm offset give or take a few mm.
It was horrible. That's why I can't fathom the PVD bike at the top. It will work great in some specific scenarios no doubt, but will feel horrible a lot of the time too.

I think everyone should try a progressive rigid bike

Most definitely.
Was like that on my Krampus, and even more so on my Stooge Mk4.
It does, however, occasionally lure you into trying to cash cheques you can't afford.
The other day I turned blythly down a steep, rooty trail that I'd normally tackle on my DMR Trailstar with dual-ply tyres and 160 forks. I survived, but nearly shat myself in the process!

'But a year later I did go see the main man at stooge for a spin on a speedball and tbh wasnt sold, but he let me have a quick spin on the stooge 3 27.5plus and it was bloody lovely feeling, if I get chance to buy one of those it would probably be the only thing that might replace my ramin, or more likely sit next to it lol'

I run my mk3 B+ with a carbon fork. Same rake but 15mm longer. Its incredibly light and stiff/precise.

Starting to think I'm on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.
Currently riding a dirty Harry with a short (none geometry correct) it feels like a big bmx at times.
Only time I was out of bike was going down potato alley, picking my way through the rocks.

Still love a blast on my rigid Inbred singlespeed from 2005, stock except for a nice fat tyre on the front. As bigdean says, like a massive bmx.

Loved the Waltworks-v2 article, thanks for sharing it. If I win the lottery..........

It's a good article, though he does stress that it's a very personal build, squarely aimed at NS riding, similar to PVD's Spitfire.
If I had the cash, I'd plump more for the Waltworks, but also, at the other extreme, I'd like to try something like a 29er that was taller and shorter than the current norm. I've had it in my head for a while, similar to Pompino geometry, taller headtube, good clearance and upright position for coastal exploring.

bigdean
Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.

You're not. 🙂

It all depends what you want to use it for.

Coastal exploring / pump track / undulating xc have very different needs to a bike for riding up and down mountains and the steep stuff.

Coastal exploring / pump track / undulating xc have very different needs to a bike for riding up and down mountains and the steep stuff.

As long as you don't need a fairly extreme geometry like bedmaker's that'll help with the fast choppy stuff, you can have all of that imo. Steep slo-mo tech geometry can also be good on a pumptrack esp if the bike's rigid and a bike that does both of those things is great for more sedate rides. (I've ridden a Jones on the Geneva-Nice GR5 and other similarly big/techy trails and a Ramin rigid in Nepal, for ref - though Nepal was ~90% hike a bike)

squarely aimed at NS riding, similar to PVD’s Spitfire.

NS = North Shore?

PVD talks a good game fo'shure and doubtless he has some pretty good ideas, but if you look at the sort of riding he's actually doing on those bikes (as opposed to the riding he talks about doing) it's pretty tame.

Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.

No, I still prefer something that feels quite agile rather than very stable. Very subjective stuff though. I think of a rigid mtn bike as something that needs to react fast through the flowy singletrack first and foremost, like a gravel bike needs to still feel good on tarmac rather than be too mtb-like, or a FS bike needs to feel stable at speed over rough ground. Bikes that play to the main strengths of their format. Fun to be had in mixing all that up.. but I come back to a round pegs in round holes sort of thing with my own bikes.

NS = North Shore?

PVD talks a good game fo’shure and doubtless he has some pretty good ideas, but if you look at the sort of riding he’s actually doing on those bikes (as opposed to the riding he talks about doing) it’s pretty tame.

yeah ns= vancouver north shore. Thats basically winch and plummet territory, fire road ups and mad steep rocky tech down with a few novel features like teeter totters (see saws), roller coasters and log rides. Great fun but not got much of the in between undulating stuff that UK riding has.

I'm fairly surprised to see a rigid bike built for this terrain... some of the trails he talks about are pretty extreme and I'll admit to walking bits of them on a Giant Reign when I went.....although I had no time to session things which seems to be what they do.

PVD seems to ride the bay area, mostly sanitised flow trails like Tamarancho and china camp and mtb limited to very hard won trails that are not particularly extreme. Sure he probably knows all the off piste but in that area you can actually get in pretty bad trouble with the police for riding unauthorised trails. So again not exactly like UK natural riding, more like trial centre stuff, but perhaps well suited to a sorted rigid bike.

Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid.
Currently riding a dirty Harry with a short (none geometry correct) it feels like a big bmx at times.
Only time I was out of bike was going down potato alley, picking my way through the rocks.

Not saying it's not fun, horses for courses and all that.

Have you tried something longish with a short fork, high offset and slack head? Its like it shouldn't work but it does seem to. Not had my stooge mk4 long (days) but had a Mk2 before it (different kettle of fish, more like a big bmx).

Seems the only options are a Jones LWB or a Stooge Mk4. No one else is doing it except custom jobs!

I hear there is just one Stooge Mk4 left in stock.....the next batch of stooges sound a little less extreme in the ha and fork offset.

Does anyone know if the new stooge is same geo as mk3 with braze ons or is there more to it than that?

It's slacker and longer than the Mk3, and the fork has much more offset than previous versions.
Info on the different versions:
a-short-history-of-steel-stooge-framesets-and-everything-in-between

From the Stooge site:

The Dirtbomb had already been created to test this geometry and it was instantly evident that this was like nothing i’d ridden before, in the best possible way. A 66 degree head angle isn’t particularly slack in this day and age, people are running around with 62 and 63, but a quick look in the right places and you’ll see that some of these bikes are sporting a lot of wheel flop, which is a negative in my book. The slack head angle on the MK4 is designed to get the rider’s weight further behind the front axle. I’ve touched on this loads, so won’t waffle any more about it here. The 80mm offset serves a number of purposes – its keeps the trail figure relatively low so the steering is still superlight and superquick (important on a rigid bike, honest) and virtually eliminates wheelflop, so it has none of that weaving feeling that so many progressive bikes sport when all you want to do is navigate a slow, techy trail.
The result is a bike that absolutely rips, you can throw it down rocky trails and dart between the obstacles at silly speeds, the forks legs also remove a huge amount of trail chatter but on the same note have very little brake flutter due to the angle of the curve. Worth mentioning also is that when you’re up to proper speeds this set up carves perfectly, there’s no understeer or oversteer, it just goes where you want it. Of course, a number of people have already commented that, ‘but my (enter name of high end full-suzzer) handles great with superslack head angle and 44mm offset forks’, and yes, I’ve no doubt about this being true for those riders, but this is a rigid bike that intrinsically has very different needs when it comes to handling and the way its ridden and navigated.

The question that many of you might be asking is of course, How does it compare to the earlier ones, the MK1 thru 3? Well, its 28mm longer in the top tube, so there’s a lot more room for fore and aft movement in the cockpit, but in short its faster and more stable. The front wheel is quite a way out, and coupled with the springy fork you can let it go on the descents, and certainly, the faster it goes the more capable it feels. The front end geometry is designed around a 29+ front tyre, but the steering is designed to feel like a MK3 with a 27.5+ front tyre in terms and steering response. It’s early days and i’m still learning this bike, but i’d say i’m already riding substantially faster through the rough stuff on this. A lot of people wrongly assume the front will feel really sluggish but the opposite is true, there’s zero delay on the handling and the speed that it can change direction is definitely one of its plus points.

 

Starting to think I’m on my own here, I actually prefer a steeper head angle on Ridgid

I still prefer steep head angle. The bike I ride off road has 74 degree head tube with 38mm rake fork.

It’s slacker and longer than the Mk3, and the fork has much more offset than previous versions.
Info on the different versions:
a-short-history-of-steel-stooge-framesets-and-everything-in-between

Sorry I meant to say the new stooge scrambler which is the next one to be released in September I think. Is that a mk 3 with more braze ons and a new handlebar?

Sorry I meant to say the new stooge scrambler which is the next one to be released in September I think. Is that a mk 3 with more braze ons and a new handlebar?

Oooh, that sounds exciting, where did you hear about that?

That does indeed sound interesting

On the stooge instagram

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PVD talks a good game fo’shure and doubtless he has some pretty good ideas, but if you look at the sort of riding he’s actually doing on those bikes (as opposed to the riding he talks about doing) it’s pretty tame.

S'funny, but that's what I'd always suspected. I dread to think how much money he's wasted invested in his stuff.

Hey, it's a hobby for him, sounds like he has a good job to pay for it. He has made bikes that suit him well and the quality of the workmanship of the bikes is second to none! Probably cheaper than owning a porsche in the end.

Without people willing to experiment we'd all still be riding road geo with 130mm stems.

To my eyes the scrambler pegs the geo experiment back slightly to make the ultimate all day all trails / bike packing rig.

Still has a specific fork offset and length tuned to the head angle which is the biggest feature of a unique fork. Along with a specific bar.

Thing I see about stooges is they are all different and each will be suited for different uses by different sizes and styles of rider. Each new one is not necessarily "an improvement" it just pushes in a slightly different direction. Just a shame they aren't all available at once to ride back to back...maybe there will be a meet up / swap shop someday.

I like the sound of a stooge meet up/swap shop!

I will be riding my Stooge Speedball tommorow. I know I will love it. That bike has something special in it. I can't explain it- it's magic.

Did a 78km ride on my MK4 today. The perfect bike for bimbling over hill and dale. Even got a couple of Koms.

Stooge meet up is a cool idea- even cooler though would be a rigid only downhill open ..

even cooler though would be a rigid only downhill open ..

Charlie the bikemonger used to run one in Porlock. A run what you brung, rigid only, klunker/BMX/retro, mass start downhill race.
Excellently chaotic!