whitestone 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.
Go suss and drop numbness
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!
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.
My short travel bike used to be a BMC Fourstroke and now is a Kona HeiHei DL. The Kona is an affordable and wonderful bike. The geometry is spot on. Wonderfully balanced for charging up or down, yet comfy for long riding. The rear suspension will take the brunt but not move too much and Fox has done a great job too on the cheaper 2017 performance forks.
It's lightweight too. I got the HeiHei DL 2017 just recently for a very good price, changed a few bits and it's now at 11.6 kg. Only 1 kg heavier than my rigid ssp steel horse.
BMC should have shortened the chainstay and played with the head angle a little to make the bike more fun. Compared to the Kona it's just a boring, dead feeling mile muncher.
Then there are bikes like Trek Fuel and Yeti SB4.5 or Stoll bikes. All of them are super fun, agile and fast and comfy for long days.
Scott has made a good bike too with the newish Spark, but the headangle feels a little out of shape for the rest of the bike - I think they went too flat.
No issue with giving mentioned bikes a beating. They'll take it with joy.
Just don't use forks with less than 34 mm stancions and (ali) rims at <400 g if you like to hammer the bike around rough stuff.
In the meanwhile, there will always be a (different) place for rigid. I remember starting riding a rigid ssp and having to adjust more to riding rigid then to riding with one gear only.