[smokey422]

I'm between mountain bikes right now, financial sitiuation forced me to sell my Fisher Marlin. I rode that bike for 9 years with a susension seatpost and a good fork and had a blast doing it. I'm not a racer, just a weekend trail rider. My question is this: are hardtails still relevant with all the dual suspenders on the scene? Reading the owner's reports on bikes like the Fisher Superfly seem to indicate they are still happy with a HT. Or are the duallys pretty much taking over? Your thoughts?

Smokey

 

[verve825]

See my post in the "Hard tails" thread.

Briefly, my resounding response is, Yes- hardtails are absolutely a relevant, functional, enjoyable, cost-effective alternative.

Regards,

jb

 

[sooner518]

head over to the singlespeeders forum. Hardtails (and rull rigids for that matter) are everywhere.

Personally, if I have a choice between my Santa Cruz Superlight and my old Rockhopper hardtail, I choose the Superlight every time. But thats just me. i know plenty of dudes riding hardtails

 

[knives out]

Yes, hardtails are alive and well in this modern era of mountain biking. Hardtails are great bikes and are a joy to ride. I regret selling mine in all honesty. I wish I would have hung on to it. That being said....

In my personal opinion, there's no place worse to get advice on whether or not you should ride a hardtail or a bike with 6" of travel on it than mtbr.com. That's not say that anyone who has or will post on here doesn't know what they're talking about or doesn't have a valid opinion as to why they prefer bike X over bike Z. What it should boil down to is what do you want to ride and what will you have the most fun riding? Go out and ride as many different kind of bikes as you can. Find the bike that you personally love to ride and ignore any and all of the BS that will be posted on this thread in the coming weeks.

 

[Fiendbear]

Look at it this way... Years ago everyone rode a fully rigid. Today, a hard tail with a good fork is a nice compromise between a fully rigid and a full sus.

 

[markf]

it depends a bit on where/how you ride and how you want to ride.

 

[perttime]

Somebody just observed in the All Mountain forum that offerings in the "AM hardtail" category are increasing: bikes and frames designed for 5" to 6" forks and with slackish head tube angles.

Apparently manufacturers think that there's people out there who will buy a hardtail

 

[cunnilinux]

sometimes full suspension is just an overkill.
i have both - hardtail & fs.

 

[dru]

The vast majority of the really fast guys I know ride hardtails. Fullies are maybe a 5th or less of what I see on the trails. I'm riding a rigid 29er and have already beaten my best time on a 26er hardtail, and I've been riding the 29er for 3 weeks. I don't entirely like the rigid set up btw, but it climbs, climbs, climbs....

Drew.

 

[lampy29]

I ride and race hardtail. Demoed fs bikes and couldn't stand not feeling connected with the trail. Was a Cannondale Scalpel so it was a really tight rear end, but the feel of the ride is totally different and also lost a lot of power on out of the saddle climbs.

 

[Nat]

This is great!

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=5797939#poststop

 

[coffeegeek2112]

I prefer to ride my hardtails over my fs. I cant remember the last time I rode my fs.

 

[f3rg]

I started on a FS. Went to a hardtail shortly after. Now I'm riding a full rigid.

I wouldn't mind having a new FS for occasional rides, but I think it'd spend a whole lot of its life in my shop, while the rigid had fun out on the trails.

 

[Yukon-RSX]

Demoed fs bikes and couldn't stand not feeling connected with the trail.

+1. It's just a completely different feeling to the FS when it comes to riding a hardtail. Most of the time I feel like I'm hovering over the trail, whereas on the HT I can feel everything.

 

[Jerk_Chicken]

This is great!

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=5797939#poststop

Yeah, two of these threads running at the same time?

 

[fliernh]

Seems like another thread discussing personal opinion. MIght as well discuss which color is better, red or blue..... Couple of responses with value talked about it depending on type of riding, skill of rider and objectives of the rider.

Fun to read though.

(everyone knows red is the better color...)

 

[kafromet]

(everyone knows red is the better color...)

Yeah everyone knows that the red ones go fasta.

 

[simian23]

I'm a ride guide in the Boston area. When we split up group rides by ability, 80% of the advanced riders are on $1000 hardtails, while 80% of the beginners are on $2500 full suspension bikes. The 20% of beginners on hardtails tend to ride much more regularly, and have improved much more over the last several months.

Not really sure if there's a lesson in any of that. I love my hardtails. But I love my FS bike too.

 

[dundundata]

i think hardtails will always have their place. less to maintain and very useful.

 

[tomsmoto]

whos actually "maintaining" the extra few pivots on their full suspension bikes? i dont maintain mine any more than i maintained my hardtails. its a constant argument against fs bikes, but theres damn near nothing you can even service or maintain on a sealed bearing pivot. you wipe the dirt off and you're good. the bearings might crap out every few years and you throw a new kit in there in an afternoon while drinking beer.

buying a road bike pretty much sealed the deal on full suspension mtn bikes for me. i have no desire to go fast on dirt. ill take some nasty slow speed technical trails on my 140mm fs bike. ill take the worst line and plow every root in my way and clunk over large rocks. mountain biking is a ton of fun, full suspension makes it even more fun! even lightweight fast mtn bikes are terribly slow compared to a roadie.

the only way id do a hardtail is fully rigid. probably singlespeed. then its like a whole new sport.