clockwork frame geometry

[clockworkgazz]

when it comes down to that crucial question of: "If you could only have one bike........?"

now that is a horrible question......will get back to you in a few weeks with my answer.

 

[Anthony]

There’s three issues, one is rigid or suspension, next is short-travel or long, then there’s flat bars or risers.

For my money, rigid with flat bars vs short-travel with flat bars is basically the same position and suits the same type of riding, it’s just that suspension is faster. Suspension alone didn’t kill xc riding.

But when you’ve got an extra 50mm of travel plus 50mm of rise, you’ve got a whole new ball game. For me it was around 98 that the change came. I remember a test of a Muni Mula with risers, and they said just that one change had turned an xc racer into a hooligan’s bike. Interestingly, Kona kept the steel bikes with flat bars that year, but the Kula had a ‘DH riser’ (despite the weight). So at that stage they must have thought steel bikes were for xc traditionalists, while aluminium was for loonies. Trouble is, even loonies get older and have pains in their joints, so now even steel bikes are set up for looning.

 

[Andy R]

Trouble is, even loonies get older and have pains in their joints, so now even steel bikes are set up for looning.

Well you've always been able to set bikes up in different ways to suit different people and riding styles. My RM Blizzard has exactly the same geometry as the ebay one in your post, I'm using 120mm Marzocchi Marathons and riser bars but I didn't end up with bars 120mm above saddle height.

But then I haven't got 40mm of spacers under the stem for a start......

I think that the average "XC" rider now wants their bike to be suitable for a wider variety of terrain than just fireroad and smoothish singletrack.
I know that's certainly true for me - BITD my riding consisted mainly of well established forestry tracks and moorland paths and unsurfaced roads. Now I tackle stuff that I wouldn't even have looked at, let alone considered , twenty years ago.
I always felt back then that the "accepted" way to set up a mtb. (flat bars, those loooong stems etc) was a real hindrance when it came to more technical sections. I should have just "bucked the trend" and set a bike up to suit myself of course, but at that time everybody wanted that stretched out racer look - it went with all that flouro riding gear.

I don't wear any of that now either - that's how times change. The irony of all this is that now I'm a far better and confident technical rider than I was 20 years ago. The friend that I went out for a ride with yesterday (me on my SS, he was on his 1990 Orange Prestige) reckons that I'm fitter now than I was BITD - it would be nice to think that, but I know that I'm not. I just feel that I at last I have bikes that help and not hinder me, and that lets me get through tough and technical trails without wasting so much energy.

I've been preaching the "shorter stem, riser bars etc " thing to my mate for months now but yesterday was the first time that he rode one of my bikes for any distance. It wasn't a "modern" bike, just my '95 "Platsa Blue" Explosif singlespeed (in rigid mode at the minute), but to say that he loved it was an understatement . He wants one.....
Anyway - two bikes with over a 10 year age difference but both set up to suit me. "Platsa Blue" is the nicer of the two though - a real gem