https://www.pinkbike.com/news/what-exactly-is-outdated-mountain-bike-geometry.html
The comments are quite good so I wanted to continue them here. Particularly this amazing one from Saidrick:
"What’s missing from this article is that every change to a bikes geometry comes with a draw back, don’t let the marketing tell you otherwise:
I have been riding for 25+ years , and have ridden everything from old school hard tails, to modern dh bikes. Current bike is a modern trail bike( ibis mojo 4).
Here’s what the people trying to sell bikes won’t tell you:
Longer wheelbases are not good if you ride on old school hiking trails, the turns are so tight that you have lift up the rear tire to get thru it( a stopper). Super slack head angles mean that the bike needs more time and distance to set up for turns and will make mellow trails feel boring.
Steeper seat angles are great if you’re 6’4”, for the rest of us, it increases pressure on the hands, wears out the legs faster and causes leg cramps for me at night( that don’t happen when I ride on the gravel bike). And again, it’s meant for Whistler and Northshore crazy steep riding.
Longer reach is good for super steeps stuff, but can stretch out your body if you do big rides.
And finally, all this adds weight to your bike, a lot of weight. Which will make climbing worse, not better…
Modern bikes are good at some things and not so good at others. Buy what you can afford and remember that every bike that gets called terrible now, was once considered to be the greatest around. The next time a reviewer says something bad about an older model of bike, go back and read the original review."
Another comment said 2019 was the peak and likely most balanced geometry basically. I tend to agree. Things got really good around 2015, were refined to near perfection by about 2020… And then we tipped over the diminishing returns cliff and couldn't just keep changing the same things. Even longer wheelbase/reach/CS, even slacker head tubes, even lower BBs, etc.
Feel free to continue the conversation about geo here. I know I've basically made a couple posts, some serious some not so serious, about bike design the past few days/weeks. So sorry about that but… I just REALLY liked Saidrick's comment and talking more so about the COMPROMISE and BALANCE of geometry as opposed to just a simplified which HTA applies to which riding marketing tactic.
by GundoSkimmer
11 Comments
I would appreciate slightly more variety in terms of geo in modern bikes. Maybe not every brand needs long reaches and slack head angles, not every customer will need or want that. A trail bike with a 66deg head angle is pretty fun, but you would never hear a Pinkbike review say that because all their reviewers are based in the PNW and do testing in BC.
Maybe more adjustability is the way out, feels like bands have all been doing the same thing with geo lately.
The thing is, none of those bikes have really gone away. Only on the really Enduro/DH end of things have we gone to an extreme. There’s myriad flavors of bike, and if I’ve learned anything from for longtime bikers, it’s that, as a whole, bikes are better than ever. Brakes and suspension, even budget ones, have come a long way even from 10 years ago. Nobody is pining for the days of long stems, short wheelbases, steep HTAs, and tiny tires. Still, modern geo hasn’t suddenly done away with nimbly-bimbly MTBs as Saidrick seems to suggest.
Depends on what you ride in the end.. And regarding reach & pressure on your hands, when you’re seated the effective Toptube (or more correct distance from saddle to bars) shouldn’t be majorly different than a bike from 10-15 years ago.
Trails in many places got a lot more challenging and more focussend on descents with bigger features. If you didn’t move with that it isn’t weird that where you used to ride a trailbike now you’d be pretty massively overbiked. Just get an XC bike in that case (or DownCountry) absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you still ride a trailbike then indeed you only get the downsides (weight, larger turning-circle).
Already considered that your preference and idea of compromise and balance might not be the same as others? That works both ways. Some people don’t care about where you care about and the other way around. Media like Pinkbike are focussend on the more ‘extreme’ end of the spectrum and might simply not fit that well with your own preference. XC from 15 years ago isn’t the same as XC today. So honestly, that comment sounds a bit like someone that is kind of is in denial that the categories they have printed in their heads aren’t the same as what they today mean. Combined with a bit of ‘know it all, know it better, I’m correct, I know the real thing’ vibes.
I’m 99% disagreing with the PB comment, And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s from someone who uses a 150mm+ bike designed to descend at mach speed but struggles in his XCish trail where a 120-130mm bike would have been better (and would have come with a better suited, less progressive geo)
I also grew up riding old shit and hardtails. Almost hitting 40 years old now and as an enthusiast of amateur racing, I have zero use for any very old-school geo. Not pining for days of geometry past and 26 wheels at all. There’s nothing wrong with buying something used or old to start, and doing that for recreation. Set your wayback machine to around 2017-18 and you are just pre-peak geometry, and low cost.
Problems getting a long bike around a turn? You’re a classic use case for downsizing for your area’s trails.
Steep seat tube angles are amazing for those of us who have spent time making sure their glutes are firing and working properly in the gym, and also do their pushups. I am 5’11” and won’t buy a slack ST bike.
I am also fortunate enough to have a Top Fuel and an enduro sled, and the Top Fuel geo would be considered “old school”. I’d never race a modern enduro on one. It’s a great big day and trail bike.
My bike has a 67.5 degree head angle, which in the past would be considered slack, now people consider 66 degrees as steep. How times change.
I tend to agree. My 2017 Sight fit like a glove. I’ve had some issues with every other bike since. The comment about making trails boring also speaks to me. I took up gravel riding a few months ago due to a serious injury and one thing I’m really enjoying about it is how I have to focus use some skills pedaling through XC trails.
66-68 degree HTAs are the sweet spot for me.
At some point we need to stop reaching the bike out so damned much. NE singletrack isn’t sweeping flow unless you’re hitting bike parks. We have a lot of tight turns, and therefore we don’t benefit from longer and slacker bikes.
Effective STA is the important number, so sizing plays a massive role here.
I do believe geometry hit its peak between 2019 and 2023. Numbers these days appear to be changed just to sell stuff. Jury is still out on that, but that’s my belief as of now.
I sort of get what the PB guys are saying. One of the bikes I was considering was a Transition Sentinel, this thing climbed like a pig and made tight switchbacks a nightmare. It felt like a chopper on the trails, and this isn’t marketed as an enduro race machine, dealers are selling it as a trail bike.
Sorry to be trite but some of y’all really should try weighting the bars.
I mean i think the key thing here is that MTB has evolved beyond the single track hiking trail style of riding – if you want to do that, buy an XC rig and you’re sorted, heck you can do it on a gravel bike a lot of the time if you want.
Slacker, longer is required for most modern buyers because for a variety of reasons nobody can ever fully ascertain, regardless of how you get the bike to the top you are going to be expected to full send it down to the bottom and deal with whatever is in the middle. Any kind of climbing tradeoffs are always going to absolutely pale in comparison to the benefits you get on the way down.
The buyer out there that wants a MTB but doesn’t want to ride it very hard is super rare. In fact, I would suggest they don’t exist and that market is basically people that don’t want to admit they like XC for whatever reason.