Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

What ring do you have up front?

Will have a 32T Hope narrow wide.

It's on order.

In orange.

I thought 32:40 would be ok. Certainly going to be harder going on serious climbs, but lighter...

HTFU*. 32:36 you'll get up anything, just have to get your lazy ass out of the saddle. If I can ride my 29+ singlespeed 32:19 up a 20% track, I'm sure 32:36 will get you up anything.

* I used to have a raceface 42t extender. I used it a lot on Tour divide, but I had a 36 up front and my bike was loaded. I think I'd stick to an 11-36 and short mech when I put gears on for HTR 550 in May.

@Sparky There's less than an inch difference between 30:36 and 32:40, too late to change your Hope order?

I noticed on Instagram that you're using a Maxxis Chronicle. How's that coping with the mud?

Nice little video about Jeff Jones and some of his ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4rxBquR5O4

@gabes @andy_k This is an interesting point. I've ordered the Hope 32T chainring already, but was about to buy the extender and an XT cassette. Now I'm contemplating just getting the cassette and seeing how I get on. Interesting... I'm no climber though. We'll see.

I have 32 : 11-36 on the fatbike.

I can still climb snow trails at 15% (hit 18.5% sunday)

On the road it's a tad under geared. But that's not major issue. I can go fast enough. I just won't enter any roadie events with it.

Where are you based? Need to have a chat with my LBS in the next couple of days but at the moment I've got an 11-36 SLX cassette that's not seen too much and is sat around doing nothing...

I'm in London. Thanks, but I just ordered an XT one - ChainReaction had them on sale for not too much money. And a fancy chain.

Does anyone know if I'll need shorter chainring bolts for a single Hope ring? And, if so, whether there are any that have an Allen fitment on both sides? Those slotted ones are a piss-poor design. Hate them.

I'll end up with the same under current plan. If it's too much for me then I'll buy one of these dinner-plate extender cogs.

I suspect you climb a bit better than me.

I could always just lose some weight and spray on some HTFU...

Same here: 32 out front and 11-36 out back on my 29er.

Spin out at 25MPHish.

Not found a hill that I couldn't ride up that i would be able to with an even lower gear. Olympic course at Hadleigh included and i'm no Olympian.

So long as you have a 'clutch' mech you'll be fine with the long, bit more chain slap but hey ho.

Fair enough! My Hope retainer ring was threaded so only needed the hex/torx side of chainring bolts. I used single, no reason double wouldn't work I don't think...

Currently running 34 chainring, 32 tooth cassette. For surrey hills/kent it's fine- will only change it if I end up in Scotland for a long period.

Thanks for the info will have to check out Southern and that. I could be up for Surrey Hills never ridden there. whats it like? is it accessible by public transport as I currently don't have a car?

would good to get a group ride going at Woburn though although a few people I have asked about said the trails are not easy to find.

Surrey Hills are accessible by train from London. I usually get off at Gomshall as it's the closest station for access to Pitch Hill and Holmbury. If you are travelling from Clapham Junction, say, on a Saturday, it would be two trains; one to Redhill then another to Gomshall.

I'd be interested in a Woburn group ride. Even if we don't find many trails I'm up for trying new places.

That is good stuff. The success of such bikes by people like Jones, other rigid plus size designs and fat bikes make people like Chris Porter fear for the(ir) future...

Don't know about the DT remote but the RS ones only need one muddy/gritty ride to be borked. Tech climbs benefit from rear suspension for increased traction so not being able to run seperately might be a pain. If it's a good design you should be able to run fully open all the time without too much bob until you really give it some beans. Don't think I've touched the lever on my Turner in 3 years.

The DT swiss are on offer pretty cheap. Would actually cost me more not to have the remote. As I'd have to buy the conversion kit. But I know what you mean.

I still haven't written off x-fusion front and rear. Would work well with the frame I reckon.

But with dt swiss being only a smidge more at the moment it's hard to resist.

So I'm learning to manual. Can't help but feel having 2kg of pikes on the front is a bit of disadvantage...

So if you were torn between two forks. Both of which probably stiff enough for the job. 350g of weight difference would sway you?

Im trying not to be a weight weenie. But that's sounds significant to me.

Well I'm both short and thin, so that's significant to me. All thinks equal I'd go for the lighter fork, but i suspect all things would not be equal...

It's a case of the heavier being a less refined fork, and probably far stiffer than I'd need.

Stack and Reach measurements for MTB frames - are they useful?

Or rather, are they less useful than measuring up for CX / Road, perhaps due to the variances in purpose; XC, Trail, AM, DH etc? Does suspension have any effect...?

Things are certainly more complicated. Bar width varies a lot more on mtbs than on road/cross, which has quite an effect on reach. Geometry changes, due to suspension travel need to be considered too, as they mess about with the stack height.

Stack & reach is still more useful than ETT though.