traildog profile

as one of those local trail association builders who spends a lot of time re- benching, re-routing, installing water bars, cleaning those water bars etc on a legacy network of illegallly, poorly built but publicly adopted trails, thank you for writing this.

Yeah, too slack. Even their effective measurement is a little optimistic as tall riders with a lot of seat post extension will only be farther back. And as @cr4w points out you also lose a few more points to sag, even more so on steep climbs when the weight shifts back. They claim 74 for the Hightower but at my saddle height of 770ish mm (normal for L) it's actually more like 73, as confirmed through analyzing with Linkage after noticing the slack feel on a test ride.

I want to love this bike and the hightower, but the seat tube angles just ruin it for me. You're right that the VPP kinematics have improved a bit, but it's mostly the new EVOL/Corset/Debonair air cans; they work really well with this type of leverage curve.

Thanks Drew

Nice write-up. Did you take a peak at the shim stacks while in there? I'm wondering if the compression stack is a little more gravity oriented than the preloaded, digressive stack in the Pike chargers.

I think in the LBS every day now we find ourselves saying "this shit is designed for racers with a factory team backing…sorry it doesn't work for more than a month at a time" and custy's are like "this isn't what i would expect from a $6k bike" and i'm like, umm, not my fault? sorry?

Re: rachel's margin, at Lenzerheide Tahnee was just 0.7 back

my direct mount chainring came loose monthly until I started soaking the lockring in loctite

Really appreciating the critical thinking/writing here. Will echo David Max's appreciation of a steep actual seattube angle. So many bikes fail this for long legged folks. There's a lot to like about this bike. Also would point out that the convertible geometry would allow a dual position air fork and a reasonable BB height in the high rear/low front position for alpine rides, while still being bike-park compatible in full shred mode.

Ran a quick analysis in linkage and while i'm no professional, it looks like (as a casual glance would indicate) it has a Norco-esque steep downward sloping antisquat curve, roughly 110% at sag in 32×42, with quite low anti- rise, and a super progressive lev ratio. 455 reach on a large might not look too new school, but that's actually the same front center as a 463 reach at 609 stack (given same HA). They're even paying design service to heel clearance! Questionable seatpost diameter but man, so much right about this who cares? I probably don't Need 170mm suspension, so drop a few extra tokens and call it good!