the BEST hardtail ever???

Mountain Goat WTR

A few years back i built a 91 rigid Mountain Goat WTR Lite. And after riding modern stuff this bike still felt awesome to ride all these years later. Fast and very comfortable!

Definately Bontrager as well. These frames although looking very plain and simplistic were engineered to obtain every last bit of performance from a set of steel tubes...Awesome frames
 
I've not had that much experience of different bikes, but Breezers give a lovely smooth and stable ride. Lively and fun too.
 
I think this one is pretty unanswerable. It depends hugely on where you live and what stuff you ride. Something that is fabulous in California does not necessarily work well in British mud.
My rigid single speed is brilliant for where I live. In the Peak District it would be a disaster.
 
There are a lot of great hard tails out there.

Upto 97, I've have to say Xizang. Just a bit of GT bias :p

So far, I'd have to say Scott Scale 949.

But ever? Enzo Ferrari had the best answer:

'The next one'
 

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BEST ever....

I'm thinking that the best hardtail ever should only go to a brand that still exists. Surely if the BEST hardtail ever was a Klein they would still exist?

I also think that sometimes it's easy to think that new technology is better than old. There is no doubt that carbon fibre is extremely light and I'm almost certain it adds a few mph on my road bike. However, would I want it on an MTB hardtail? I personally think I'd be paranoid of the thing cracking everytime I took it off road.

So far:

Alu's: Klein MC1/MC2, Yeti Arc, Zaskar, Pace, ParkPre
Steels: Bontrager, DeKerf, Orange, Stumpjumper
Ti: Merlin

To me it looks like its between the Stumpy, Clockwork and Zaskar?!?!?
 
Rocky Mountains of course, they taught Dekerf how to build his bikes ;)

But in all honesty, the ones that annoyingly stand out for me, really annoyingly, as they are crap mass produced, generic twoddle you see everywhere.
Bloody Kona's They ride nicely, are comfy, easy to work with, you can fit most forks with little tweaking. Have a size to fit pretty much anyone. And while I'm sure everyone hates them ;) Few say they are actually crap bikes to ride.
They go up hill well, they go down hill well. They go over bumps and through bumps. Don't mind the flat either.
But of course they are still crap <in case anyone asks, I'll deny I said the above>

They are still around and the basic design lasted many many years
 
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