About 3 years ago I attempted to knock out the Coconino 250 solo with very little prep and a lot of alcohol in my system – I made it around halfway to the mingus mountain climb before getting heatstroke and calling it quits.
I learned.. a lot. From incorrect bike selection (used a hardtail with 110mm of travel) to what I actually needed to pack and not to pack.
That being said – I live in Florida now and would like to tackle the Huracan 300. I really want to make sure I prepared correctly and that means picking the right bike.
Some images I've seen gravel bike setups:
And have also seen people recommend a full sus setup:
I lean towards the full sus for overall comfortability and if it would add to efficiency – holding speed better through the techier sections or rolling over roots and bumps with ease.
What bike type would you recommend overall?
by florizonaman
5 Comments
Nah, hard tail or rigid is the way to go. There is no reason for a full suspension, none of the route is technical enough to warrant that. You could go gravel bike and that would be fine for most of it, but there are sections that are super sandy where MTB (or plus tires) will be your friend. A friend and I did it on Surly Krampus’ him running full rigid on 2.8 and me with 120mm travel on 3.0 tires. Both were very comfortable.
Hardtail at least on the sections I’ve done.
FWIW that user with the full suspension wasn’t recommending using full suspension just saying that’s what he uses, probably because that’s what he’s got.
It may hold speed better through a small amount of tech but other reports in that posting say the route is 2/3 pavement/gravel and FS will by worse in those sections
Full suspension is overkill for 99% of the route and the sections you could use it are still rideable on the hardtail just fine. The big mountain bike sections are Croom and Santos which are XC style trails, not rooty and rocky. Bigger challenges are sand and mud. Fully rigid would be okay too but a hardtail with lockout would be my recommendation.
I live in Florida and am doing the Huracan Lite gravel edition this year. Did the mtb version last year.
I am a failed H300 rider (going to try again this year !) but have ridden the Santos and Croom MTB trails very extensively and no, full sus def not needed. Croom is relatively smooth, and the original version (the one that’s 375mi) is mostly on the easier trails at Santos.
If you are doing the longer version (not the Original) you will be riding some extra bits of challenging singletrack at Santos, but still doable with a HT, and the tough sections are relatively short. You can always just walk some of it, and frankly riding it with a fully loaded bike, FS or HT might be improbable anyway.
Besides all that, only 1/3 of the route is singletrack, so you’d be optimizing for a minority of the miles.
I’ll be making my second attempt on a HT MTB.