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

Yeah it’s a groove.
Gussett chainset BB
Gussett disc brakes
Wheels unidentified
Brakes Hope
Forks unidentified
Tyres crazy bob

popped into that little jump track this morning, looks pretty cool, a good number of jumps all nicely made and maintained
fascinating little place

Really depends on if it was the plus tyres you didn't like or the handling/ride position, as I don't think the 2 are comparable apart from that

Short or long wheelbase?

I expect you're more used to a lighter, more stretched out race position, but then you do also ride a cargo bike a lot :-)

SWB, older diamond frame with uncrown fork, so not huge tyres I believe (at least at the back). I think I'd keep a bike with suspension and this would replace my "touring" bike, which doesn't really see any touring but does see some commuting. After a few years riding proper dutch cargo bikes for work my back doesn't seem to get on with a road position for more than a few hours.

Krampus just felt a bit heavy and imprecise. Didn't really like it's charge at stuff and hope the big tyres get you through approach. I imagine the Jones front end feels quite a bit lighter and manoeuvrable.

This is all quite speculative and reliant on selling about three other bikes.

selling about three other bikes

details pls!

pair of quite boring carbon cyclocross race things and a ti independent fabrications winter road bike/light tourer, the latter of which I'm not entirely set-on selling, but not really getting much use out of lately.

Anybody in her on Maxxis Aspen 29x2.4"? They look the ticket for summer riding.

Thursday morning is looking viable

Hola all, I'm getting a bit of wrist pain on longer rides. Can anyone recommend handlebars (perhaps with some backsweep?) that might alleviate this? Specs of the current stock bar are: 780mm width, 4º up, 9º back. The bike handles beautifully and I don't want to mess with this too much. Ta folks.

SQ-Lab make some nice 16 degree sweep bars in various amounts of rise. Also a 12 degree

If you want a higher rise bar, there's the Stooge Moto. For a flat bar, there's the Salsa Salt Flat

There's plenty of 'alt bars' with much more rearward sweep than that, but I always find the bike handling suffers when you go too far

Thanks BN those SQ-lab bars look like just the ticket. Will take a closer look. (Because I'm a massive cheap ass) I don't suppose anyone has some SQ lab bars or something similar for sale?

I have a couple of the carbon sqlabs. I like the 16 on the lond distance bike and 12 on the proper MTB.

Cheers Skinny, good to hear a real world review. I hadn't heard of sqlabs before but they sound awesome; light, strong and ergonomic.

I'm a big fan of these with 12deg backsweep (also available with smaller rises). Pre-Brexit you could get them for a steal but still pretty decent value even with shipping from EU...

https://www.ergotec.de/en/products/lenker/sub/mountain-bike-lenker/produkt/riser-bar-70-31-8.html

Pippingford Park round of the Southern Enduro series today, which had free camping if you turned up for the track walk on the Saturday. I took Addison the Camper, who was a great partner for the weekend.

Blue sid ultimate has been returned and refunded. Not because it’s blue, but because it was going onto a 100mm carbon xc bike in an attempt to make it more trail friendly. Maybe it might have, but I was worried it would ruin it and be good at neither xc or trail.

Xc bike is now also tentatively sold. I had great plans to do a handful of xc races but in reality there are two per year near me, and I’m not competitive enough to drive across the country to race.

So, I want a trail bike, but I don’t know if I want a 120-130mm trail bike (that I could still do the two local xc races on) or a 150mm trail bike (that I could try an enduro or two on). I also don’t know if I want a fairly bling hardtail or a comparatively entry level full sus.

My current options are tending towards what I know - a new purple cotic Solaris max with the gold xt/sid ultimate spec, or a stanton sherpa ti with slx/fox 34. I have a penchant for steel. Flaremax is probably just a little too out of budget, but there are 120mm Scott spark 950, 130mm giant trance (non-X) and 150mm carbon lapierre zesty’s in stock relatively locally that are within budget. The lapierre maybe a bit of a stretch but I could make it work if it’s worth the spend.

80% of my riding will be local trail centre which is currently rideable on a carbon xc bike but not terribly fun on it, however they’re developing it a lot all the time so I’m sure it’ll be bigger and more challenging.

I’m based in RoI so something European would be a bonus.

I've been racing the Southern Enduro Series, sometimes on my 135mm trail bike and other times on my 160mm Enduro bike. The Enduro bike is too much bike for the series tbh, given the speed and the terrain, but I'd like to get more time on it before I go to the Alps this summer.

One thing that I found interesting recently is that when I ride the trail bike with Helm #2's on it and then the Enduro bike with Ohlins 38's you can definitely feel the difference in terms of torsional rigidity as the Enduro bike tracks where you point it whereas the front wheel of the trail bike follows a mixture of inputs from both handlebar and terrain - so it's not all about travel.

If you wanted one bike then I'd get a trail bike, and the bike I'd get would be the RAAW Jib, as it's a trail bike that is Morgins capable, which means that it's more mini-Enduro bike than burly XC/hirsute downcountry frame.

I'm tempted to swap my 295 for one.

Was definitely looking at the jibb over the past few weeks but I could easily blow my budget out of the water by the time I add a nice fork, wheels, brakes etc.

IMO don't bother with a hardtail (and this is coming from a hardtail afficionado), especially a steel hardcore/trail one. They will feel out of their depth in an Enduro (unless there's an HT class) and still crap in an XC race unless it has XC geometry...

I'd go for something around 130mm travel with Pikes/34s and a 67 head angle in your situation

Was definitely looking at the jibb over the past few weeks but I could easily blow my budget out of the water by the time I add a nice fork, wheels, brakes etc.

I've not seen a Jibb, but if it's a Madonna that's been washed too hot then the level of attention to detail will be deeply impressive. The frame+shock price is (comparatively) very good compared to it's peers, which gives you some cash to spend on the fork etc.

Anecdotal, but I was riding the liaison between stages yesterday with a couple of other (much faster in the stage) riders, and they were totally taken aback at how cheap (again, comparatively) the Madonna frame+shock was. Bear in mind that it's in the same class as a Dreadnaught, Atherton etc for performance, but it's over a grand cheaper.

@Colm89 - Buy Neil's Pace for a bargain price when he gets the Jibb

Someone was selling a flarenax no?

Sí

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16541139/

I concour will Phil. Full sus 130 ish maybe 140 upfront 66/67 ha. Pike not a Sid. Or even a lyrik. And some good rubber. Also consider reach so you can run a shorter stem than an xc bike.

I'd really like to get something that will take a coil, I don't really like air shocks or forms.

Would be spot on only shipping to Europe would probably rule it out.

If I buy something locally I can use cyclescheme on the first €1250

Thanks @Alb will take a look.

I know we seem to be sending @Colm89 down the full sus trail bike route but thought I would mention Pace have the rc627 hardtail frame on sale atm:

https://pacecycles.com/collections/frames/products/rc627?variant=42665467871398

Edit: ended a couple of days ago!