I'm not entirely sure what commenter @Ceecee is saying... But I have been thinking a lot about the pratfalls of chainstay length recently (albeit from my own peculiar perspective -- 191cm tall, 195cm wingspan, 820mm-ish saddle height) and what I'm looking for with chainstays on all sorts of different bike: race-y SS hardtail, comfortable all-day-pedaling trail hardtail, mid-travel trail bike, bike-park-and-shuttle-only bike. Strangely, I think I see the benefits of size-specific changestays for the XL/XXL sizes I'm riding on the set-up-for-comfort HT and the park bike, but not on my singlespeed or trail bike.
With my SS rig (currently a semi-custom 44 Marauder, but owned/loved the previous-gen Chameleon in both carbonium and alu) anything longer than about ~425mm and the bike starts to lose some of the quickness that I favor in a light, speedy, one-geared setup. I find it so much easier to change direction at slow speed, more predictable over steep/sharp rolls and stepdowns, and MUCH easier to jump (that much-discussed, "big BMX bike" feel). It is speed-dependent, though -- get going too fast and it feels like a survival test in loose corners or keeping traction through a chute. That's where things cross over to a more all-mountain-ish, all-day, ride-anything hardtail (my current experiment in that dept., w/ 445ish chainstays slammed all the way back, is a Pipedream Moxie Mk3, which has a far-too-short effective TT in the Longer size -- but that's a different story/problem). I'd go for even longer 455+mm stays on this sort of bike if available (or on a future custom project) -- not just for the stability discussed but also for the added traction/plantedness spinning up steep climbs.
The thoughts on FS chainstay differences also probably belong to a separate discussion, but I mostly want to make the point that the question really varies from bike to bike, or purpose to purpose, or even (we might say) one person's ride fantasy to another's ride fantasy. What made the last-gen Chameleon (esp in carbon) so perfect was that it mixed XC-racer levels of stiffness and efficiency with a totally different, much more attention-grabbing descending style. But, for me at least, it was a tough bike to ride for more than 2-3hrs at a crack, going fast could be scary, and (irrespective of the CS question) the reach was pretty damn short for someone of my armspan (I'm decidedly an XXL for Santa Cruz). With no BMX or DJ training, though, I always felt like an interloper on the Chameleon rather than the target audience.
Last thought in this disconnected jaunt -- I'm not sure I've yet rode a metal hardtail with longer-than-430mm stays, that also has proper rear-end stiffness and tracking...
Nov. 27, 2021, 6:35 p.m. - gubbinalia
I'm not entirely sure what commenter @Ceecee is saying... But I have been thinking a lot about the pratfalls of chainstay length recently (albeit from my own peculiar perspective -- 191cm tall, 195cm wingspan, 820mm-ish saddle height) and what I'm looking for with chainstays on all sorts of different bike: race-y SS hardtail, comfortable all-day-pedaling trail hardtail, mid-travel trail bike, bike-park-and-shuttle-only bike. Strangely, I think I see the benefits of size-specific changestays for the XL/XXL sizes I'm riding on the set-up-for-comfort HT and the park bike, but not on my singlespeed or trail bike. With my SS rig (currently a semi-custom 44 Marauder, but owned/loved the previous-gen Chameleon in both carbonium and alu) anything longer than about ~425mm and the bike starts to lose some of the quickness that I favor in a light, speedy, one-geared setup. I find it so much easier to change direction at slow speed, more predictable over steep/sharp rolls and stepdowns, and MUCH easier to jump (that much-discussed, "big BMX bike" feel). It is speed-dependent, though -- get going too fast and it feels like a survival test in loose corners or keeping traction through a chute. That's where things cross over to a more all-mountain-ish, all-day, ride-anything hardtail (my current experiment in that dept., w/ 445ish chainstays slammed all the way back, is a Pipedream Moxie Mk3, which has a far-too-short effective TT in the Longer size -- but that's a different story/problem). I'd go for even longer 455+mm stays on this sort of bike if available (or on a future custom project) -- not just for the stability discussed but also for the added traction/plantedness spinning up steep climbs. The thoughts on FS chainstay differences also probably belong to a separate discussion, but I mostly want to make the point that the question really varies from bike to bike, or purpose to purpose, or even (we might say) one person's ride fantasy to another's ride fantasy. What made the last-gen Chameleon (esp in carbon) so perfect was that it mixed XC-racer levels of stiffness and efficiency with a totally different, much more attention-grabbing descending style. But, for me at least, it was a tough bike to ride for more than 2-3hrs at a crack, going fast could be scary, and (irrespective of the CS question) the reach was pretty damn short for someone of my armspan (I'm decidedly an XXL for Santa Cruz). With no BMX or DJ training, though, I always felt like an interloper on the Chameleon rather than the target audience. Last thought in this disconnected jaunt -- I'm not sure I've yet rode a metal hardtail with longer-than-430mm stays, that also has proper rear-end stiffness and tracking...