160mm travel! to much or good fun??

twin3

hi looking at full sus bikes and think i have found a good deal on a good bike just slightly more travel than was looking for. The bike has 160 travel was looking at 140 ish. I know it will be more fun dh but will it still climb? Hopefully going to see bike on monday. lapierre spicy 216. Any views would be appreciated!

Phillw454

Believe my front shock is 160mm (Rock shox Domain), and 160mm on the back (Rock shox monarch)

It is a fair amount of fun pointing down a hill, but serious hard work on any up hill, weight of my bike doesn't help either.

Short answer, yes its fun, I hit about a 4foot drop the other day with a pretty average landing off a slope and it soaked it up without even throwing me off balance. But come to any slope that is longer then 50 meters and your legs will start to feel it. With my shock at least.

cooldad

Depends how fit you are. My youngster (Spesh Enduro with 160mm each end) loves annoying roadies who catch our sweating bunch by drafting them up Radnor Road in SH and then blasting past them. Gives us some amusement when we are suffering.

twin3

im up for uphill challenge i think!! i will give it a look. Locking the sus out should help anyway shouldnt it ??

supersonic

Ish. You still have slack geometry (usually), and lots of weight.

Fun is subjective!

mattv

It all depends on the geometry of the bike, and the terrain you want to you it on. As a general rule, the longer the travel bike, the slacker the angles on it. This makes a bike more stable at higher speeds but less responsive at lower speeds.

cavegiant

My bike has 175 up from, I use it for road ride, race XC and ride AM/DH.

My frame is designed for 140.

Try not to get too number obsessed when biking, counting numbers makes forum fun, but rarely makes a big difference on the trail.

if the worst comes to the worst, you can shorten most forks

twin3

good point! I do think you can get carried away with numbers. the bike will be getting used for many different types of riding. Got a couple of trips planned north of the border and a bit closer in the lakes, and hopefully europe toward the end of the year. I do now want an all rounder....

supersonic

Try not to get too number obsessed when biking, counting numbers makes forum fun, but rarely makes a big difference on the trail

It can make a massive difference on the trail! A 40lbs DH bike will not be as quick as a 20lbs XC bike in an XC race. And I imagine a 25-30lbs trail/AM bike will be better for the majority for 'standard' mtbing.

But again, depends what floats your boat. Also have to be careful with invalidating warranties by going too big on some frames.

Best thing for the OP to do is test the bike, and some others, and go for whatfeels best.

Northwind

Travel by itself doesn't mean an awful lot, you can get 140mm bikes that'll be more capable pointed downhill than many 160mm bikes frinstance- Pitches, Wolfridges, Herbs etc. It's part of a bigger package.

I'd have told you 160mm would be no fun, until I tried it, and even on really simple trails where it should just be stupid overkill, it can still be fun when ridden right. Or, it can feel like a big dead weight on the nose of the bike, when I'm not in the mood.

twin3

As far as i know the spicy 216 is about 30lb? which i dont think is to bad! like you say i need to give it a whirl...

supersonic

If that is true, is a decent weight. But look at the Zesty also.

Northwind

Spicy 216 is claimed as 14.8 kg! Which is 32-and-a-bit lbs. Not too terrible for what it does but not light either.

Zesty is a right wee monster of a bike, there's very few people will really use the full capability of these bikes after all. I mean, I've raced downhill on my 160mm bike and wasn't last, but was never close to the edge of what it's capable of. I'm not sure I'd buy a Spicy, I'm sure it's good but the geometry's a wee bit conservative and I'm not sure it does that much that little brother doesn't.

twin3

Not looked into the zesty, ill have a browse on google. To be honest lapierre where not the first bike of choice, have been looking at the canyon xc and am range... A bit annoying not being able to touch one until you have bought it tho! The spicy just caught my eye on sale looked a good buy slightly more travel than was looking for but hey ho.....

Tom Barton

Its a bit of a broad field the 160 travel bikes. Some can be very freeride orientated whilst others can be more trail+ orientated.

But even then, cost plays a factor a spicy 216 that weights 32+lbs is at odds with the 916 at 27lbs - the 216 wont be much fun to log up a hill but certainly my 516 and a friends 916 go up no problem at all (we're reasonably fit too..). I like the odd trip to cwmcarn and enjoy hitting hip jumps and drops were possible - its not that the zesty can't do them, I just feel happier doing it on the spicy and i'm willing to do the extra work up the hill.

If i had the money i'd buy both

robertpb

Congratulations you just become the person who has revived the oldest post, eight and a half years. You must have a lot of time to waste.

Well I'm correcting myself here you've allready revived a ten and a half year old post a few days ago.

You're trying to sell stuff by directing us to web sites your getting paid from.

steve_sordy

Ban royalsinger014

mtb-idle

it's the new forum format innit bruv. It brings up all the unread threads on the front page even if they are years old.

I was also just about to reply as well. My recommendation was my YT Capra AL1 2015 model but as that wasn't released until 4 years after the question was asked (and now it's four years old) it's pretty useless for the OP...