2manyoranges
Old School Grand Master
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....A while back I read an interesting post re downhill geometry:
https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/size-matters ... all-321374
...and so a small experiment began. Bearing in mind I have a stable of bikes running back to the 1990s, and some of those were VERY carefully put together after experience of cycling thousands of off-road miles. Typically, at 5 foot 7 I have been riding 15 inch frames - orange, bontrager. AMP, and so on. My optimum bike of years has been a 15 inch (orange called it 17) bb to tt centre C16R - huge fun, fast and reliable as the cold water tap. And then I got into DH (my son was to blame for that ... I said 'yes' to building a gravity bike for him). And so the fun began. A couple of DH rigs later, I had begun to re-think geometry. I had a 'large' Cannondale F6 frame lying around (16 inches bb to tt centre), and decided to stick 130 travel forks (Reba) on the front, and made it up. I had seriously dismissed the frame, but measured it and found that it had the same reach as my orange, but with a much higher bar height. The 130 mm forks and 40mm stem did not mess up the geometry since the F6 is actually build for this length of fork, with a good seat angle and slack head angle - although no way as slack as a Cotic or Ragley. The build went well, with Hope WTB and 11x2 XT it came out at just over 9kg. And I thought it would handle like sh+t, compared with my reference Oranges. How wrong I was. Ten minutes in fast, rooty and slippy single track showed the bike as fast, responsive, flickable, strong in climbs and quickly 'a body part' rather than something being sat on.
I got back on the Orange and it just felt short and small. The standover height was right, the Orange catalogue of the time said the size was right. Yet with the 130 stem out front and the tt at 56 cms it now feels WAY too small. And slightly scary going downhill. The Amp (a medium) was just as bad. Yet the AMP had felt big when I first got it, way back in the last century.
Next to the Cannondale the Orange looks tiny and the AMP looks like a much smaller brother.
I am building a Cotic SOUL and Ragley Marley for the retroGrom...much longer cockpits and very slack head angles.
I think we might be riding things out there on the trails and climbs which are too small.....
https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/size-matters ... all-321374
...and so a small experiment began. Bearing in mind I have a stable of bikes running back to the 1990s, and some of those were VERY carefully put together after experience of cycling thousands of off-road miles. Typically, at 5 foot 7 I have been riding 15 inch frames - orange, bontrager. AMP, and so on. My optimum bike of years has been a 15 inch (orange called it 17) bb to tt centre C16R - huge fun, fast and reliable as the cold water tap. And then I got into DH (my son was to blame for that ... I said 'yes' to building a gravity bike for him). And so the fun began. A couple of DH rigs later, I had begun to re-think geometry. I had a 'large' Cannondale F6 frame lying around (16 inches bb to tt centre), and decided to stick 130 travel forks (Reba) on the front, and made it up. I had seriously dismissed the frame, but measured it and found that it had the same reach as my orange, but with a much higher bar height. The 130 mm forks and 40mm stem did not mess up the geometry since the F6 is actually build for this length of fork, with a good seat angle and slack head angle - although no way as slack as a Cotic or Ragley. The build went well, with Hope WTB and 11x2 XT it came out at just over 9kg. And I thought it would handle like sh+t, compared with my reference Oranges. How wrong I was. Ten minutes in fast, rooty and slippy single track showed the bike as fast, responsive, flickable, strong in climbs and quickly 'a body part' rather than something being sat on.
I got back on the Orange and it just felt short and small. The standover height was right, the Orange catalogue of the time said the size was right. Yet with the 130 stem out front and the tt at 56 cms it now feels WAY too small. And slightly scary going downhill. The Amp (a medium) was just as bad. Yet the AMP had felt big when I first got it, way back in the last century.
Next to the Cannondale the Orange looks tiny and the AMP looks like a much smaller brother.
I am building a Cotic SOUL and Ragley Marley for the retroGrom...much longer cockpits and very slack head angles.
I think we might be riding things out there on the trails and climbs which are too small.....