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855 views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  mtbfan2 
#1 ·
I understand climbing you want little travel or you waste energy.
Downhill and going fast you may want more travel.

I need someone to help me with trying to determine when you need a range of ~160 -210MM of travel versus 80-150mm of travel when working with big jumps and/or drops.

Here is the reason why I'm not sure about things: When I(myself my opinion) hit jumps I want less travel because I get better pop with my bike and I don't feel like I'm going to sink into the jump. That being said, I have to come down too and 120mm never seems to be too little. Doing 5-6 ft drops with 120mm or 150mm of travel doesn't seem to be much of a different feel either.

Everyone has told me you want allot of travel when you do big drops......well 6 to 8 feet going slow is like doing a jump fast and getting 4 ft of air in some ways.......your hitting the ground faster and harder with the jump.

Jump bikes usually have short travel forks that are stiff and pros do jumps where they sometimes get 10 feet of air so there going to come down 10 ft usually with good speed too.
Freeride bikes and Gravity bikes (if there is such a MTB titled Gravity bike) seem to have a huge amount of travel. I've never seen someone hit a jump with 210mm of travel and I've never seen anyone bottom out with only 150mm of travel on big drops. Is this stuff just marketing or can someone explain to me when you want/need a range of ~ 160 -210MM of travel versus 80-150mm of travel?

Thanks to anyone who responds!:thumbsup:
 
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#2 ·
I will give it a crack at explaining.
Having long travel [EG an 8 inch down hill bike] is not all about drops and jumps.
Its about control at speed [50kmph plus] on very rough decents with basket ball sized rock gardens etc, The more travel you have the greater the length of time and space the damping has to work to absorb impacts and hence allow the rider to maintain steering control
Watch a few DH race vids and you will quickly see that most competitors try and get as little air as possible, flat jumping where possible, you slow down in the air, you want to be on the ground and pedaling, maintaining your speed even over the roughest ground.
And so long travel works well
But long travel [8 inch plus] comes at a price, bikes are very heavy [18-20kg is not uncommon], pedal poorly as a result and handle slowly making them relatively useless for any other sort of riding but DH.
Thats where travel around six inches comes in, commonly referred to as "All Mountain", they are a compromise between having enough travel to aborb reasonably big hits and drops while still being able to be ridden uphill and XC to some degree.

Most jumps have a transition so you are not flat landing, flat landing a dead drop from 8 feet will not only bottom out ANY bike but stand a good chance of doing you damage.
Pure jump bikes [often referred to a park bikes] have very stiff, short travel forks for the POP you mention when you hit a lip and to handle a landing but a typical jump park does not have irregular rough ground with tennis ball sized rocks and dry creek crossings etc so you dont need any where near the level of suppleness and damping control

There is no such thing as do it all suspension, at each end there are specialist bikes [DH and XC] and in between every thing is a compromise.

I hope this helps
 
#4 ·
That's just it. The technique for drops on real mountain bikes isn't the same as it is on a BMX or MTBMX. On an MTBMX your seat is way down low and out of the way allowing you to use your legs as all the suspension you should ever need. On something like a XC bike that just isn't true and the equipment on them isn't built to fall several feet with a rider's full weight on them.
 
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