How strong is my bike?

Brown sauce

Hello people, so I have got my bike which I love. Is a trail/XC bike. I bought it as I mainly ride the downs. But lately as most do I have started exploring more. Found jumps at kingly vale and queen Elizabeth country park. They aren't major jumps. Also since my bike is a full suspension I have found a hell of a lot more speed downhill as my last bikes were all hard tails.

So my thinking is if I start hitting some jumps say getting 4 foot of air and hitting downhills quite fast am I going to wreck my bike? Or will it handle it? I have heard my bike is a bit of an all rounder. It has a only 100 mm of travel and I weigh about 11 stone.

Here is my bike

I wouldn't get rid of my bike as I love it to bits. I just don't want to wreck it and may start a free ride build depending on responses

Thanks

The Rookie

It will be fine, just keep on top of the maintenance, nothing wrecks a bike quicker than keeping damaged bits on it!

97th choice

Parts will wear a bit more probably, BB, shock bushings, wheels will take more of a pounding as you only have 100mm of travel. Just keep on top of the maintenance as suggested

Chunkers1980

If you jump and land properly it'll be fine, if you don't it won't.

bartimaeus

I have an Anthem and I ride QE and KV. I'm pretty rubbish at jumps, but I am confident that your Anthem will manage anything at QE. You need to be a bit more careful at KV - a 4ft drop will be OK as long as you don't land it badly, but the Vale run has jumps that can send you far more than 4ft if you want, so you'd better be nailing the transitions.

If you can clear the final 40 footer on your Anthem please be sure to post up some video.

Here's the bottom section of the Vale - http://vimeo.com/67025680

This is the first successful clearance of the final table, and this is what happens if you don't have quite enough speed... I suspect that a landing like this might void your warranty.

Brown sauce

Ah wicked thanks people. I was hoping that would be the response. Plus I don't need to spend another load of money on a different type of bike and persuade my girlfriend that I need another bike and probably get in trouble haha.

But cheers for the responses.

Kowalski675

Bartimaeus wrote:

and this is what happens if you don't have quite enough speed...

Ouch, lol.

Anonymous

Kowalski675 wrote:

Bartimaeus wrote:

and this is what happens if you don't have quite enough speed...

Ouch, lol.

ouch indeed lol.

YeehaaMcgee

Descending at speed is not "downhill", in the same way that skiing down a hill is not "downhill skiing".
It won't do any more damage to your bike, provided you don't crash it and so on.

jumps will be fine if you land them properly. MTBs are extremely versatile, you really don't need a different bike for every minutiae of riding genres.

rockmonkeysc

The bike is going to let you know when you reach it's limits. The geometry will make it very difficult to hold much speed through rough sections and as you build up to bigger jumps it will start to get a bit twitchy and bottom out.
Jumps are likely to break the bike if you land them badly.
You can't turn it in to a freeride bike just by changing parts. The Anthem is definately more at the XC end of things but I ride an XTC and ride it fairly hard, the main difference is my frame cost me bugger all so I don't really care if I snap it.

Brown sauce

Haha, I used to have an xtc. Loved that bike but unfortunately it was stolen. I wont be doing any cam zink style jumps. Just a few foot of air. If I felt I wanted to pursue it I would maybe make myself a cheap hardtail trail bike I think so I would be like you and not be too bothered if it broke.

I think I got a bit mislead with all the different types of bikes you can get now. Because I was going a lot faster down hill and doing the odd jump I started to think I needed a different type of bike just for that discipline. But as everyone has said the bike can handle a lot.

Is the difference between current times and 20 years ago where you had hard tails, the odd full suspension, hard tail with front suspension and erm...more hard tails, which were used for everything.

paul.skibum

Your bike is a 29er. From what I have read I assume it doesn't go round corners, doesn't jump and you are american.

Nothing at QEP should scare anyone on a half way decent bike.

Brown sauce

Haha, no you probably wouldn't buy a 29er if you were getting into jumping. Round corners It feels good to me. On trials it feels so much faster than my 26 inch hardtail used to feel. Obviously I haven't done any tests but for XC/trails I wouldn't have anything else now.

I think it's like everything though its personal preference. Would be boring if we were all the same

YeehaaMcgee

trials?
Are they pushing 29ers on trials riders now? I thought they were happy with 20".

Brown sauce

Hahaha, sorry trails....