100mm of Travel - How big a drop off

Akita Dog

Hi - Mountain biking newbie

Just bought my first full sus - went for the Giant Anthem x5 from Pedalon for £899 last years model with a view to getting a better bike later on if I really get into it. My question is this - with 100mm of travel on front and back how much of a drop off will this bike take. I ask because I am due to go to Sherwood pines tomorrow - I went there last year and road over the wooden north shore bridges on my cheap Clude Butler - with my current bike will i be able to just lift and drop of the ends of them instead of just riding down them - or will it just destroy the shocks? Plus I dont mean the last one of these ramps which seems quite high and more for dh bikes.
Thanks for any help provided.

bennett_346

It will be fine

cooldad

Kind of depends how you land

Anonymous

Yep, who needs suspension what you have skills and balls.

I have neither, so I need the biggest suspension I can get of course

cooldad

And you still end up in hospital.

supersonic

Dropping fla to flat I wouldn't want to go more than 2 or 3 foot. Into a transition is a whole different thing though.

IBISMojoHDamon

Based on the fact that this is an XC bike, I personally wouldn't... It's not that won't be fine, because it will be, I'm sure but if you wanted to do jumps and drops, you should of bought a Trance...

Make sure you read the owners manual about warranty and understand what the manufacturer covers and doesn't cover under your *limited * lifetime warranty.

Dave_P1

Most bikes can take a lot more abuse than the average owner can throw at it.

bennett_346

Dave_P1 wrote:

Most bikes can take a lot more abuse than the average owner can throw at it.

provided they are properly maintained.

supersonic

And well ridden. A clumsy, slightly sideways landing on a 3 foot drop with lightweight xc kit and you risk folding the wheels. And other parts.

Stevo_666

2 foot drops are fine on my Anthem but I wouldn't want do much more than that as I'm using pretty much all of the travel at normal fork & shock pressures.

d00m

3 foot should be fine provided you land straight and true. From a control point of view though, you should suck up as much of the landing as you can through your legs and arms as well, and not let the suspension do all the work.

dry664

supersonic wrote:

And well ridden. A clumsy, slightly sideways landing on a 3 foot drop with lightweight xc kit and you risk folding the wheels. And other parts.

I can personally vouch for this

1mancity2

On the Anthem as above no more than a couple of foot,

but 100mm is fine just depends on the bike, I have 100mm dirtjump forks on my hardtail and they take alot more than 2ft!!

Anonymous

d00m wrote:

3 foot should be fine provided you land straight and true.

That was my mistake. I used my head for the landing.

Hacker60

I've just started landing 2-3ft Jumps on my FSR XC - after changing forks from Judy J3's to
Fox Talas RLC - 90-130, the front end is superb, but the Shock only has 100mm, so I've upped
the Psi as it kept bottoming out, had the Shock fully rebuilt by X-Fusion, then take a bit
of Air out for Trailing, how much more will this frame take before I do some damage ?
2006-7 Bike, a rare find, almost new condition, everything upgraded except shock.

I love the way it rides, balance, weight it's a really fun bit of kit and I've put a lot of time into it.

1mancity2

Hacker60 wrote:

I've just started landing 2-3ft Jumps on my FSR XC - after changing forks from Judy J3's to
Fox Talas RLC - 90-130, the front end is superb, but the Shock only has 100mm, so I've upped
the Psi as it kept bottoming out, had the Shock fully rebuilt by X-Fusion, then take a bit
of Air out for Trailing, how much more will this frame take before I do some damage ?
2006-7 Bike, a rare find, almost new condition, everything upgraded except shock.

I love the way it rides, balance, weight it's a really fun bit of kit and I've put a lot of time into it.

If your landing your jumps on the transition its irrelevent how high your going to some extent, landing to flat you could go a far bit more than 2-3ft.

craigw99

landing to flat you could go a far bit more than 2-3ft.

... in the golden days of my youth (20 years ago) people did 2-3 ft drops on fully ridged bikes - have bikes gotten weaker/softer over the years?
imo any bike should be able to take that sort of drop without flinching as long as you dont land too silly even ones at 23lbs or less they are MOUNTAIN bikes after all :-)

mrmonkfinger

craigw99 wrote:

have bikes gotten weaker/softer over the years?

Just the riders.

Hacker60

Same, remember landing 3 footers on my old griffter, ouch!, bent forks
buckled rimms and loads of fun.

1mancity2

That's exactly what I said "a fair bit more than 2-3ft" heck I used to do 10ft drops on my old viceroy bmx, built like a tank mind.

craigw99

ive got happy memories from turning my front wheel into a dorito after particularly bad landing from a good jump in my local woods. this was on an old diamonback accent with straight ridged forks. we used to get a good 4-5 foot of air out the top of that jump on ridged bikes. on my f/s you hardly notice the jump it just feels like a big rise in the trail - the suspension eats the little kick at the top we used to launch off

Daz555

Landing 3 footers onto flat was not a problem for my old fully rigid back in the mid 90s so I don't give it a second thought on my 09 FSRxc which as 120mm of bounce. Well - when I say I don't give it a second thought I mean for my bike - I still crap myself. :?

As long as you soak it up with your knees and elbows you should be fine. If you find you are slamming hard through all your travel and start bending the wheels then yes you need to back off.

supersonic

This is it: "as long as". More travel and tougher bikes let you get away with more mistakes.

mattyg2004

If I snap my plastic spark doing a 1ft drop after reading this I'm gonna go mad at you guys

dan shard

I dont think the 'I used to do it on a rigid fork so why do you need 100mm' argument really works though..a rigid fork is very tough due to it being rigid..a suspension fork at the end of its travel doesnt have much protection for its internals and could suffer serious damage if it reached the end of its travel and still has a hard contact..its not the bike frame thats going snap on a big drop, its the forks that are going to be wrecked..they are designed for xc not big drop offs..having said that I used to hit 2 foot drops on my old Cube AMS 100 and it seemes to cope ok...ok being the important word..not great. If you want to start hitting trails with 3 foot drops you want to think about a new bike...my 160mm remedy eats 3 foot drops

1mancity2

dan shard wrote:

my 160mm remedy eats 13 foot drops

Fify Dan

YeehaaMcgee

craigw99 wrote:

landing to flat you could go a far bit more than 2-3ft.

... in the golden days of my youth (20 years ago) people did 2-3 ft drops on fully ridged bikes - have bikes gotten weaker/softer over the years?

Yes. It would appear that manufacturers are pushing the weight limits further and further, resulting in weaker and weaker bikes. They're still fit for purpose, of course, but your lightweight XC bike of today is much lighter and more fragile than a decade or so ago, because bikes have become much more specialist.

Thewaylander

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

craigw99 wrote:

landing to flat you could go a far bit more than 2-3ft.

... in the golden days of my youth (20 years ago) people did 2-3 ft drops on fully ridged bikes - have bikes gotten weaker/softer over the years?

Yes. It would appear that manufacturers are pushing the weight limits further and further, resulting in weaker and weaker bikes. They're still fit for purpose, of course, but your lightweight XC bike of today is much lighter and more fragile than a decade or so ago, because bikes have become much more specialist.

To a degree i would agree with this.

Long live the all mountain 6" bike back to the good old days of 1 bikes ruins all

Dave_P1

It's the skill of the rider, not the bike.
Unless your doing mega sized drops you shouldn't be bottoming out the fork anyway.

craigw99

YeehaaMcgeeYes. It would appear that manufacturers are pushing the weight limits further and further, resulting in weaker and weaker bikes. They're still fit for purpose, of course, but your lightweight XC bike of today is much lighter and more fragile than a decade or so ago

i guess they are a bit, im noticing the pro xc 29ers are coming in at about 20lbs :shock: my cannondale HT is about 24.5lbs which for what it was was pretty light in its day (22.5 with rigid forks) - it took all i could throw at it! 3ft drops and all!