Slack HTAs did affect climbing negatively when our whole weight shift was rearward. i.e. every bike all the time until just a few years ago. But seat tubes got steeper shortening ETT and we added a bunch of reach and occasionally lengthening the rear center. Think about it for a second. If your center of gravity is way behind the BB and fully unweighting the steering axis, of course it's going to steer lazily. Climbing an old DH bike uphill illustrates this pretty convincingly. Now try the same experiment with a modern enduro bike that has all the changes I described including a 64' head angle and it climbs/steers uphill just fine.
April 4, 2022, 7:44 a.m. - Cr4w
Slack HTAs did affect climbing negatively when our whole weight shift was rearward. i.e. every bike all the time until just a few years ago. But seat tubes got steeper shortening ETT and we added a bunch of reach and occasionally lengthening the rear center. Think about it for a second. If your center of gravity is way behind the BB and fully unweighting the steering axis, of course it's going to steer lazily. Climbing an old DH bike uphill illustrates this pretty convincingly. Now try the same experiment with a modern enduro bike that has all the changes I described including a 64' head angle and it climbs/steers uphill just fine.