I think people have forgotten that you're allowed to use the entire length of the saddle, you paid for the entire thing, seriously :-) For the avg rider, we don't encounter super steep stuff that requires a STA over 75* and if and when we do, it's not normally a long section and as said, just scoot forward - _I'd wager that not more 5% of MTBers worldwide have access, or easy access to the type & steepness of trails NSMB riders do._
Fact of the matter is, the only real reason for these silly steep STAs is to try and keep the seated cockpit within a reasonable size, to try and help weight the front, while making the Reach too long for a given size - _we now have size Medium frames with Reaches longer than XLs from just a few years ago, which if you were riding XC and wanted to be stretched out and put those hips into a powerful angle to really put the power down, would make sense._
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that there are some XLs with Reaches of 500-525mm, that's fantastic for who should really be riding an XL frame, you know, people over 6'5"> instead of having to run 120mm> stems to get a bike to fit without going custom. Now maybe XL bikes are truly XL, as personally I don't think of myself as "XL height" at only 6'2", but that's just me and maybe we need real XXL sizes.
Jan. 14, 2021, 7:27 a.m. - Lynx .
I think people have forgotten that you're allowed to use the entire length of the saddle, you paid for the entire thing, seriously :-) For the avg rider, we don't encounter super steep stuff that requires a STA over 75* and if and when we do, it's not normally a long section and as said, just scoot forward - _I'd wager that not more 5% of MTBers worldwide have access, or easy access to the type & steepness of trails NSMB riders do._ Fact of the matter is, the only real reason for these silly steep STAs is to try and keep the seated cockpit within a reasonable size, to try and help weight the front, while making the Reach too long for a given size - _we now have size Medium frames with Reaches longer than XLs from just a few years ago, which if you were riding XC and wanted to be stretched out and put those hips into a powerful angle to really put the power down, would make sense._ Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that there are some XLs with Reaches of 500-525mm, that's fantastic for who should really be riding an XL frame, you know, people over 6'5"> instead of having to run 120mm> stems to get a bike to fit without going custom. Now maybe XL bikes are truly XL, as personally I don't think of myself as "XL height" at only 6'2", but that's just me and maybe we need real XXL sizes.