On my dpx2 I’ve been using middle on trails where I might want to pump and make the bike go airborne (I believe the switch actually says “trail” on it) and open for chunky stuff.
I’m finally about to list my 2021 Trance 29 for sale with the intention of getting a larger size bike. I’m 6’2" with a short torso and long arms & legs.
My current size large I think is too small for me (460 reach) - I have lots of pressure on my hands and whenever I descend out of the saddle I always feel like I’m right on top of the handlebars. Is the bike being too small consistent with those feelings when riding? A longer stem and higher rise handlebars seemed to help a bit. MTB sizing is hard for me to wrap my head around.
I am also 6’2". I like 485-495 reach for most riding, esp when it gets pointed down. I had an XL trance 29 advanced that was 480 reach. Felt fine with 50mm stem, but could have maybe done 60. I am probably more evenly distributed torso/legs. With more modern bike geo than the trance, the seat tube angle will get steeper, so seated pedaling will feel a bit more crowded. I swear I had 4 mtbs that had the same TT measurement, and reach increased incrementally as they steepened STA. It eventually went too far with the S5 Enduro that was over 510mm reach. Felt great for trail riding, but lacked real range for pushing bike from under me for drops.
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I might mess with low speed compression on the fork to make it feel poppier. Could also be that I just need to get used to the extra travel. Will give it a few more spins before I start twirling dials too much.
My cheap rear shock always felt like garbage. Scored a dpx2 off pinkbike for like $200 and all was good.
Do you have a way to demo a larger size? It looks like the large 2022 Trance is 18 mm longer in the reach department.
I’m also 6’2", but with a long torso. That usually makes for some butt scrubbing in the steeps for me.
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6’2 seems too tall for a large on most mtbs. I think an XL is an easy solution. The short torso should be evened out by your long arms atmo.
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No opportunity to demo unfortunately. I saw that they bumped the reach of the new large Trance out by 20mm but they also steepened the STA by 3 degrees so that eats that up.
My three main contenders at the moment are a Trance 29 2, Habit 3, or maybe a Spark - 950 or better. The Trance and Habit are pretty close to one another on EP, the Spark is a bit of a wildcard since it would be a used demo bike, but I do still really want one especially since I could turn my Trance into a carbon Spark.
I rode my MTB tonight - ironically when I’m seriously thinking about replacing it I set lots of PRs on a 5 mile loop trail. I’ve never ridden a MTB as well as I did tonight. I did try really paying attention to my position on the bike and what felt good and what didnt.
Climbing and flatish seated sections, the bike feels good. Out of the saddle with dropper down on a little pump track-ish section on the trail the handlebars felt really low especially as I was really focusing on leaning the bike over through turns. Downhill I have a bad tendency to let my weight get too far forward especially under braking. Overall I wanted handlebars higher and occasionally a bit farther away.
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LOL the reach on the new XL Trance is 53mm longer than my current L, but at my saddle height the 2.5° steeper STA puts the saddle about 40mm further forward relative to the BB. So effective +13mm reach and +18mm stack.
The steeper STA doesn’t negate the reach, but may eat into the seated pedaling feel. It just becomes a bit different vibe while riding. Less of the old XC long cockpit that felt like it mimic the road fit. You can obviously slam saddle back to get a slightly longer seated feel, but if you are focused on enjoying the downhill, then finding the more ideal reach and stack is better. Most of these should be close-ish in stack given fork length.
tl;dr modern geo seems to force you to chose what you’re looking for overall. The best balance will be found in more conservative brands that haven’t pushed XL reach over 500 or STA over 77*.
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Makes sense. How do you figure out what’s the best stack/reach though? Like what does a too big bike feel like as opposed to a too small one?
Sorry for the dumb questions.
No, no dumb questions.
Sadly it comes from just trying a bunch of bikes. I found that my favorite of late was my S4 Enduro, so I try to keep the frame of reference near that for finding bikes that may fit. But, it is weird to see how stack can affect things. Like I rode a s5 Levo that had longer reach than I really wanted, but it didn’t feel that bad, and I think it was due in part to taller stack height. So even though it was longer than some other bikes, I wasn’t needing to bend over or reach as low when descending. You can sometimes offset it a bit with rusty stacks or riser bars, but sometimes too long and low doesn’t feel great (even though low often refers to bb height in the long, low, slack mindset).
If you’re up for another suggestion, I moved from the Trance 29 to a Banshee phantom and loved it. I went XL and put a 140 fork on there (basically just new air spring from trance fork), and that brought reach to about 490, and raised stack a bit. They give pretty solid discounts for industry folks. In fact, I have had two of them. First was after the trance, then I snagged the Spur I thought I always wanted but couldn’t make fit feel good, then purchased one again. I sold that before moving to Bellingham, but did ride one around the east coast, and even took it to a shuttle bike park outside Bentonville. So it can do a whole bunch and still feel pretty peppy like you’d expect a 115mm rear travel bike to be. But new float x damping makes it solid through some chunky descents.
1 season.
I think I installed them backwards before. 
Also hit some Cush core zen with a 15 minute tire change and zero swearing needed.
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We need to talk about proper grip rotation
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Where do we talk about mtb racing?
Being sick all last week was great for catching up on DH race coverage. Les Gets was great. Snowshoe was awesome. Interesting to see people not from the east coast coping with east coast terrain. Doesn’t seem bad but then people are out there getting almost paralyzed and smashing into trees at full speed. Maybe the word for it is “sketchy.” I use that word a lot when evaluating trails.
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Yes, Snowshoe is def sketchy. Never quite feels like the rocks dry out. Okay, they do after a long bout of sun. The east slope is really slick with roots and stuff, but Western side they do the DH runs on varies a lot. So tons of flat and oddly shaped rocks you don’t really have traction on, trying to go real fast, can def lead to a lot of mistakes/crashes.
Would it be fair to say that stack and reach should be thought of more of a factor in body position when out of the saddle than while pedaling?
I had a V2 Paradox that was super fun until the seattube cracked. I was super impressed with them when they offered me crash replacement pricing even though I was the second or third owner.
Unfortunately at the moment I would need to sell the bike as a whole in order to pay for something different so parts swapping isn’t an option.
I had a set of Renthal 50mm risers that I put on, will be interesting to see how the increased stack feels without pushing the reach out.
late pass here but we need to celebrate the sour patch jersey
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It’s actually been honestly a very exciting world cup season, especially in the men’s race, but even the women’s races have had some variety in the winners. 7 races and we’ve had 6 first time winners. It’s really cool to see a mix of like first year elites winning - and then people like Dak and BK having some of their best results ever late in their careers.
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I just tried to get a BK Sport hat but their shop says $30 shipping. God damn it!! I need to drive up to MSA.