Moderators: Bearbonesnorm, Taylor, Chew
Much truth ... so, what bike, what tyres and and what pressures CB?assuming the bike is well designed for rigid riding, many aren't.
The frame and forks are a bag of sub standard for anything rough, it's an experiment in using a sprung/suspended steel frame by Budnitz designed for gravel. It would be exceptionally good for a long routes of fire trails and 4x4 tracks as it's very efficient, especially climbing. I'd imagine that in the states (where it was made) it would be outstanding on long smooth (dry) SoCal rolling mountain trails. Here in the UK? Not so much. The rest is 1x11 SLX/XT, XT tubeless wheels running 2" WTB Rangers (I like these a lot) at about 30psi for flat stuff and 20psi for rough stuff (anything less and I'm pinging the rims).Bearbonesnorm wrote:Much truth ... so, what bike, what tyres and and what pressures CB?assuming the bike is well designed for rigid riding, many aren't.
Riding something rigid well is generally counter-untuitive and like so many other things in life, appears to work much better once you learn to say, 'f*ck it' and simply let go
I wonder whether you might have had a different experience on a different bikeThe frame and forks are a bag of sub standard for anything rough, it's an experiment in using a sprung/suspended steel frame by Budnitz designed for gravel. It would be exceptionally good for a long routes of fire trails and 4x4 tracks as it's very efficient, especially climbing. I'd imagine that in the states (where it was made) it would be outstanding on long smooth (dry) SoCal rolling mountain trails. Here in the UK? Not so much. The rest is 1x11 SLX/XT, XT tubeless wheels running 2" WTB Rangers (I like these a lot) at about 30psi for flat stuff and 20psi for rough stuff (anything less and I'm pinging the rims).
No doubt I would! It's a certainty that what I used was emphatically not suited to the descents. Though as Jim says, it absolutely destroyed him on the flat and climbs.Bearbonesnorm wrote:I wonder whether you might have had a different experience on a different bike
The balls over brains approach wasn't what I meant when I said, "Riding something rigid well is generally counter-intuitive and like so many other things in life, appears to work much better once you learn to say, 'f*ck it' and simply let go ".Unless it's very sketchy the "point it downhill and hold on until it's over" approach has served me well.
I think it depends on the bike. I rode it on a hardtail El Mariachi in 2014 with a Reba, and on my Jones this year. I think the Jones design is more suited to being rigid than, for example, the El Mar - I ran it rigid for a while too.whitestone wrote:There are descents where the lack of suspension is going to be a real hindrance, Coire Lair in Torridon comes to mind. Most of the Kinlochleven descent isn't too bad from memory but there were a couple of sections I walked where it just got too rough.
The Spearfish? It was designed and aimed at long distance XC riding rather than trail centre type riding.
Go suss and drop numbnesswhitestone wrote:The Highland Trail does the Devil's Staircase in the opposite direction to the way you went and comes at the end of the route. I rode on a Cotic Solaris with rigid carbon forks.
It wasn't the rocky, techy stuff that was a problem as you'd either go down slowly picking lines or walk the really tech ground but the long chattery tracks that link everything up. Being as relaxed and fluid as possible "helps" but doesn't deal with everything. By the end little and ring fingers on both hands were numb and it's taken several months to get the feeling back.
Give rigid a break and/or ride less rigid. What's so great about being in pain if you can ride without? Your collection of injuries sound very similar to mine and I too don't want to make further damage but ride hard.Catbaiter wrote:Truth be told, I've been biking for a long time (like most people here). I know how to ride a rigid bike up and down a hill, I've been doing it since the 80s. I used to race XC on rigid bikes. My do it all bike is rigid, my fat bike is rigid... you get the idea. I'm not brilliant by any means, but I think that probably qualifies as "practise", though you can never have too much of that.
But with a busted knee, a busted shoulder, a former broken back (with the accompanying 2 years of staggering painful physio) and half a lifetime of other assorted skiing, climbing and mountain biking injuries slowly coming home to roost, I just want to make my life a little easier. Soft? Yeah, very probably. But I'm not in denial about that!
At the time it was the only MTB I had apart from the fat bike.Alpinum wrote:Go suss and drop numbness
Catbaiter wrote:Alpinium - That's some really useful advice and very much appreciated thanks. It reinforces the conclusion I was coming to.
I test rode a few FS Whyte, Orbea, Spesh, Scott, Orange and Cube bikes over the past few days (basically whatever I could get my hands on). They were nice, but a bit 'meh' and I was beginning to lose hope. However the Cannondale Carbon Bad Habit I tried was in a league of it's own. And I near instantly fell in love. It climbs way better than I anticipated (I had low expectations to be fair), it's pretty light and I can swap out the 27+ for 29 when I want to go mile munching. I was leaning towards a leftie fork (on the normal Habit 1), but even discounted it's it's horribly expensive, also new wheels would be harder to get (and more expensive, and it wont go up to 29). So I opted for the 2. I liked it so much I put the deposit down and it arrives early next week.
Loving the pictures (and on the Enduro thread), inspirational stuff. Iceland is an amazing place to ride, and I have a real ache to go back and put in practice all the things I learned from the first trip.
Cheers.
Thing is, while a Lauf fork will do a lot to cushion things and more than changing materials etc will do - you could have the comfiest set of tyres, frame and fork materials etc, but if your (not you particularly, just in generalI've tried a few different iterations of rigid (Ti/steel frame, plus tyres/rims, different bars & grips) and just can't get to a point where I'm not either in a bit of pain or experiencing tingly/numb fingers after a big ride.
) weight is in the wrong place and puts pressure on your hands and the bike geometry causes or exacerbates that, it'll never be comfy. At the other end of the scale is something like my steel Jones, bomber-stiff compared to most bikes I've ridden yet amazingly comfy - design and weight distribution making way more difference than materials. I've cursed that bike's rigid front end briefly, occasionally, but it took some genuinely difficult terrain over a few days to get to that point. I've had more numb finger issues in recent years from road riding on a comfy bike, simply caused by light pressure over too many hours for a few days, maybe neck tension from other positional causes, etc. 
