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Short or Mid-Travel Bike???

7K views 51 replies 31 participants last post by  steve76t 
How much travel you need to ride a given trail will be somewhat dependent on how fast you plan to go. At some point, as you slow down, it will become easier to pick your way through more technical stuff on a the shorter travel bike than the long travel one, but if you maintain speed and plow through the whole thing, the longer travel will be better...
Sums it up nicely. I'll add an associated factor is geometry. Longer, lower, slacker geos also favor plow over rather than pick through, and longer travel bikes are generally longer/lower/slacker for this reason, but there is some variation. Maintaining speed through tech stuff is difficult to impossible climbing and way easier when descending, so longer travel longer/lower/slacker bikes essentially favor descending over climbing.
 
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