Messing around with bikes

Lately I've been enjoying my hardtail. Mainly I seem to wheelie a little better on it, meaning two pedal strokes in stead of one. It's all relative.

But I've been meaning to try out the 100mm for on it just to see how it rides. I slapped it on yesterday and ran it up Old Farm today. My legs are definitely on the upswing as two days after Poor Farm I was able to post a great time, only 30seconds off my best time.

So it climbed decently. I had to get off and hike a couple of times from spinning out, but that's a hardtail issue and not the fork.

It felt a little awkward going down. It's my first ride on it, and it's just like when I go back to the dually after being on the hardtail, it takes at least two to three rides to get the timing back.

It is definitely steering a little slower. My Minute 100 has an Axle to crown of 573 mm and the Black 80SPV is 553 so a 20mm difference in height. I removed 20mm of spacers to place the bar in the position, but the added AC height ends up slackening the head tube. In addition, I also had to adjust the tilt of my saddle.

The bikes was originally built almost 9 years ago with a 71.5 head tube around a 70mm fork. Quick yes, but in my younger days that's what I wanted. It put my on my ass several times. Since then I moved to the Black 80 SPV which helped slacken it up to probably a 71 degree. That is pretty standard for XC bikes. My dually has a 70.5 head tube and it's always felt a little bit tamer and in control.

It takes more muscle to get it to corner but overall the stability was nice when tired. The extra travel was also nice on the downhills for the bigger hits. I've always wondered how the hardtail would fare and was thinking that a 70.5 degree head tube combined with a 100mm SPV type fork would make an ideal hardtail for our technical terrain out here.

It would climb decently but then also decend well. I'm going to withold final verdict till after a few more rides. But so far I know that it does climb pretty well.

Oh just a note. I am pretty convinced that a dually is faster in the long run. The cummulative fatigue just adds up so much that 2-2.5hrs into it the dually starts to pay off. But I am just having fun on the hardtail. It really forces you to be on your game.

Now 3hrs into a ride I'll change my tune but for short rides when you're mentally and physically there they rule. The fitter experts can do it for longer.

The funny thing is that just crusing around with the kids on the trail I think a dually is way better. Cause you're going slower and sitting down and take every hit right through the saddle.