Aggressive & non aggressive hard tails/FS

Mattcurrie93

Hi,

Been reading through the forum.
What's the difference between aggressive and none aggressive. How can I find out what my current hard tail is?

Is there any links to what parts of the bike are what and what they mean. As in 120 travel etc

Cheers

rockmonkeysc

It's just fairly meaningless, made up definitions.
If you enjoy your bike, don't worry about it.

The Rookie

As very rough rules of thumb you have three levels of HT
XC - 100-120mm travel with a fairly steep head angle (close to 70 degrees)
Trail - 120-130mm travel with a slacker head angle (circa 68.5) and a slightly lower BB (maybe)
Aggresive - 120-160mm forks, much slacker head angle and possible a lower still BB.

Of course you can find parameters that could put a bike in any category so it's more a reflection of the intended usage than anything else.
Examples
The Stanton Slackline could easily be classed as an aggressive hardtail based on the head angle and BB height, but it's intended to really be a trail bike with just a different slant on how it rides, many people use them for just XC riding liking the relaxed feeling they bring (despite the fact they are shipping around an extra 3/4Kg of frame).
The Ragley Piglet and Blue Pig have (or at least had) the exact same frame geometry but the piglet was lighter and less robust and designed for lighter duty use.