April 23, 2014

At long last: a geometry post!

Interestingly enough, I’ve had people start asking me *not* to do the shortest possible chainstays they can get. I tallied up the last 6 months or so worth of 29ers and the favorite length seems to be settling in around 420-425mm… which is funny, since that’s what every single bike available from about 1990-2003 had. History repeats itself… but is it tragedy or farce this time around with chainstay length?

Yeah, I just dropped Karl Marx on y’all. How do you like me now?

Ok, so back to the topic at hand, which is Jackson’s frame. Jackson wanted something that would inspire confidence when *charging* stuff – and didn’t care too much if it suffered when ridden slowly or timidly. I have a feeling riding with Jackson is never easy.

So, the vitals:
-68.5 HTA and 98mm of trail. 65.5cm front center. Should be good if you’re in attack mode, not so good for spinning slowly up a steep climb.
-60cm toptube
-42.5cm chainstays (or you can use the sliders to go back to 44.5cm)
-For a 120mm fork with a tapered steerer
-Boring 305mm/12″ BB height. Jackson’s local terrain would normally favor a higher BB but he doesn’t like the bikes he has that sit higher so this was as low as I was willing to go.
-Clearance for fattish (2.4) tires if he wants and cable routing for 1x or SS use. Does anyone use front derailleurs anymore?
-Relatively normal XC tubeset. This bike is for hard fast riding but not hucking or taking on the chairlift.

So in short, a bike that likes to be ridden hard and fast. And a HUGE change from what he’s used to (relatively steep angle XC bikes with long chainstays), so we’ll hope he likes it as much as we both think he will.