Travel vs category of bike, gone mad or what?

Ryan Jones

I've recently become aware that between my two phases of bikes, that things have progressed a lot, however one thing that really struck me is that some mainstream bikes seem to have extraordinary amounts of travel for the category they are supposed to be filling.

For example a work-mate has a Specialized Stumpjumper FSR which seems to be marketed as a trail bike, yet has a whopping 140mm of travel. Then i read that the Scott Genius MC series are now at 150mm travel, and the latest "all mountain" Genius LT's will be 180mm of travel, just 20mm short of a full on DH Norco :shock:

Now whats the crack with this, bikes now are supposed to be stronger then ever before (ignoring Lapierre's), probably have better suspension technologies than motorbikes, have supposedly tougher parts than ever, yet suddenly we now "need" these huge amounts of travel, why?

Chunkers1980

More travel = better and knarlier.....honest

bennett_346

More travel is more fun. The only reason to have shorter travel is for full on XC which is dying out.