"...the bike generally had sufficient travel in this type of terrain. There was less margin for error when I screwed up but at the slower speeds this didn’t really make a significant difference."
"...I felt like I was getting real good at it. I had to work harder but \[...\] the Spectral 125 really made me feel more one with the bike and the terrain on fast chunky trails."
I like this, because I too find geometry makes way more difference in margin of error than travel does, at pretty much any speed besides Mach Stupid.
I've made both changes: more travel with matching geo, and also modernizing geo (longer front-center, longer effective reach, taller effective stack, slightly lower BB) while going down slightly on travel; and the geo made way more difference in my margin of error regarding keeping myself rubberside down and on the trail. More travel added margin of error for breaking things, mostly tires and wheels, when shit went rubberside up or getting tossed off the trail, but didn't do as much to enhance my ability to hang on when it got spicy.
Not that I want a 100mm/100mm bike with DH bike geo, but I'd rather have a modern-geo shortish-travel trail bike than a 5-year-old enduro bike, because it gives _me_ more margin of error to keep things sorted, as opposed to giving the bike more protection against me letting things get out of sorts.
June 3, 2022, 9:50 a.m. - Justin White
"...the bike generally had sufficient travel in this type of terrain. There was less margin for error when I screwed up but at the slower speeds this didn’t really make a significant difference." "...I felt like I was getting real good at it. I had to work harder but \[...\] the Spectral 125 really made me feel more one with the bike and the terrain on fast chunky trails." I like this, because I too find geometry makes way more difference in margin of error than travel does, at pretty much any speed besides Mach Stupid. I've made both changes: more travel with matching geo, and also modernizing geo (longer front-center, longer effective reach, taller effective stack, slightly lower BB) while going down slightly on travel; and the geo made way more difference in my margin of error regarding keeping myself rubberside down and on the trail. More travel added margin of error for breaking things, mostly tires and wheels, when shit went rubberside up or getting tossed off the trail, but didn't do as much to enhance my ability to hang on when it got spicy. Not that I want a 100mm/100mm bike with DH bike geo, but I'd rather have a modern-geo shortish-travel trail bike than a 5-year-old enduro bike, because it gives _me_ more margin of error to keep things sorted, as opposed to giving the bike more protection against me letting things get out of sorts.