New Biker Dilemma - What to upgrade?

Hello,

I got into mountain biking last year, bought a Norco Fluid HT. I ride Fromme once a week (when allowed). I'm absolutely still a beginner and is learning basic techniques. Trail I do, Bobsled/Espresso/Oil Can/Leopard/Crankum...etc, some Seymour black trails as well. I like my hardtail and is very useful to learn how to ride properly, my question is, is it too early to upgrade? My options are:

1) Upgrade fork: Should I increase travel on my fork? It currently has 120mm, should I get something like a 140-150mm? It will obviously change the slack angle on my bike so I'm not sure if that's a good idea

2) Used Full Suspension: Get a decent used Full Suspension for $2-3k

3) Status Quo: Ride until I can't go any faster on a 120mm hardtail

Thoughts and suggestions?

Thanks,

For those trails I would think that your fork is fine. 

I donno - I think that you wait until it’s clear to you. A FS will be nice but much more so on rougher trails than those, AND hardtails these days can go almost anywhere. 

I think that when you should make a change, you’ll know it. Maybe the move is do nothing now and wait until you find yourself on the rougher trails a lot, and then get a used FS. 

Welcome to riding in the woods!

As long as it fits well, I’d make sure you have some sweet tires, and set them up tubeless if you’re willing to deal with the hassle. 

A nice wide bar too, depending on what came on your bike. 

A nicer fork with more travel (140mm?) would be next.

Don't know what tires it has but there's probably room to upgrade there (for a lot cheaper than a fork or new bike)

Others may disagree, but as someone who has both a hardtail and full suspension, I think you'll want to get a full suspension at some point. You can absolutely ride everything on a hardtail, but it is less forgiving. A full suspension will help you build your confidence without punishing you to the same degree for mistakes.

Posted by: D_C_

Others may disagree, but as someone who has both a hardtail and full suspension, I think you'll want to get a full suspension at some point. You can absolutely ride everything on a hardtail, but it is less forgiving. A full suspension will help you build your confidence without punishing you to the same degree for mistakes.

Totally agree. If you want to progress to the next level, buy a capable full suspension bike and learn to ride it.   Lots of good deals on used bikes

I would suggest just riding a lot more, and ride as varied trails as you can and really get a feel for what you like and don't like. Then you will have a more informed idea of what you're after. It seems like you just have a case of "the upgrades" and this will help you sort your ideas out a bit better.

Your skills.

If groups/camps or Whistler ever get back to some kind of normalcy do that. Get out with more people. Dedicate some riding to pure skills dev. Rent an FS bike and ride the bike park (or shuttle somewhere) and hit the same stuff over and over again. Those demo rides on FS will give you a lot of new data r.e. what's missing from your skills or kit.

There's no end of stuff to spend money on. It makes more sense to get as much varied experience as you can to see what recurring themes come up then act accordingly rather than buy a bunch of gear speculatively. If you ride more you'll need the gear either way as your rate of parts attrition will go through the roof: tires, parts, brake pads, stuff you break from crashing, protective gear, etc.

Man #3 all the way, ride the wheels off that thing. I used to shuttle a 14" borrowed hardtail in the 90's and progressed way more than I have in the past decade on my high zoot wonder bikes.

Like they said, session your skills up. There's a million good drills you can do in absence of a proper coach. I've found a silly up and down a curb drill does wonders for novices.

Lean back to unweight the front end and get the front wheel up onto the curb, then lean forward slightly to unweight back end as it rolls up onto curb.

Turn around and ride off, push the front end down off the curb with elbows high and as *strong* as can be so there's no way to be knocked off your imaginary line. 

Do some super slow mo balancing as you turn around for another go.

Next time around practice manuals off the curb, landing both wheels simultaneously and in control. Pretend you are sitting on your rear hub. If you can slow manual off you're ready for jumps and drops.

I ran an off-road clinic for my road bike club for a few years. The riders that mastered up and down a curb, and especially slow manuals, basically skipped over the beginner mtb'er phase altogether.

When the XC season started on our technical course the roadies that did the MTB clinic shaved an average of 7 min over 20km compared to their peers, crashed less too.

Totally. I call that mini manual off objects a flair. Flairing off stuff makes you so so much faster on the trail. When you can comfortably flair off objects coffee table height or more suddenly a whole new world of speed opens up because you don't have to slow down to drop your front wheel carefully. You just plunk down with most of your speed and keep on going.

Hmmm ....  flair ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRNQu9d-84

Posted by: KenN

Hmmm ....  flair ...