Bike selection

[cpblue]

I've done plenty of roadie touring with panniers or a trailer, but the idea of going off road and light is something I've got to try.  My MTB is a Giant NRS3 full suspension ride and after checking most of the topics on this forum I's still trying to figure out if a hard tail is the way to go.  I'm in flat Houston, Tx and plan on heading to CO to doing some bikepacking this summer.  With all of that, here's my question.  Is it easier/more efficient to carry gear on a bike without rear suspension?  Thanks.

[joeydurango]

Full Sus=complicated.  Hardtail=simple.  When you're in the backcountry for days at a time you want to simplify as much as you can to get rid of any potential problems.  Plus, if you bikepack with a fully, you're adding a lot of suspended weight.  You can compensate somewhat by adding pressure/spring preload, but the bike still isn't going to ride the same.

All that said, if the NRS is all you've got, then by all means use it to get out there.  Make sure you get here early enough to do a little acclimatizing before heading up to the really high country!

[Marshal]

The short answer to your question “Is it easier/more efficient to carry gear on a bike without rear suspension?” is YES.

A hard tail has more room for a frame bag and there is less chance of seat bag/tire rub.

Does this mean a HT is ‘best’ overall for bikepacking? No, there is no best overall, only best for specific conditions and/or best for me/you/him/her.  Ie: A FS might have some desired characteristics that are more important to some than what a HT  may bring to the table. 

In the end we all get to choose what’s ‘best’ and its funny how even the most experienced choose differently, right?.

But if you are anxious to buy a new bike for bikepacking you might try two approaches.

1) Study up on all the HT, FS, 29er, etc types/options discussed here on bikebacking.net and pick what seems to mach up best to your expected trail conditions and fits your wants, concerns and desires best.

2) Or you could do a few bikepacking trips with your current ride and then use that experience to pick what you now most want in a bikepacking bike.  You might even decide you already have the best bike.

Regardless of the particular bike you choose have a great time this summer bikepacking in Colorado!! 

PS: And my advice is to go minimal, packable and light with your gear so as to fully enjoy the “riding” part of the bikepacking experience

[bartspedden]

From a pure physics perspective, the answer to your question is really rather simple.  A full suspension bike will take more energy to travel on because some of the energy you apply to the pedals will be absorbed by the shock instead of propelling you forward.  And that means you will have to pedal more/harder on a FS.  

But that has little to do with reality as far as I'm concerned...

I do all my riding with a full suspension bike and LOVE it! I can lock out the fork and shock, and any combination there of.  I really like this because I can change things up as I want during the ride.  For me, this adds a lot of comfort.  When I want to get out of the saddle to get the blood flowing to the rump, I'll take a look at the terrain and make a decision as to what to lock out.  If it's smooth, I'll lock out both the fork and shock.  If it's rough and I'll just lock out the shock.  My shock has 3 seetings: 1) full open, I use this for really rocky uphill sections and almost all the downhill; 2) a pro-pedal platform, I do most of my riding here because I do notice less pedal bob and all of my uphill; & 3) locked out, for smooth, out of the saddle riding and those sections on road between trail heads.  My fork is adjustable too. There are 3 travel lengths, 100mm, 120mm, & 140mm.  I use the the 100mm for all my uphill and flat riding, and any short downhill sections too. I don't really use the 120mm settings. And I use the 140mm settings for all the downhill.

After a long and hard climb up a mountain to rather high elevations, I really appreciate the ability to rake out the fork and soften up the rear, and drop my seat (manually). I have more fun on the downhill and I feel safer too.  Plus, my body takes enough beating and I'm happy to have the dampening effect of the suspension to not only absorb the big hits, but also the little stuff too.  On long days, sometimes my hands suffer the most, I can't imagine what would happen with less suspension.  

Until now, I never really considered this, but I wonder if those with tubes and a rear suspension see fewer pinch flats?

I do my very best (I'm sure others do better) to properly maintain my suspension throughout the season and will replace seals before big trips. I set my fork/shock sag on a per trip basis with the bike fully loaded with gear/water/me. knock on wood, I've never had any mechanicals in the mountains. I'm a light rider, so my weight with gear/water is equal to lots of other riders body weight, so maybe my bike doesn't take as much of a beating.  Additionally, I do pay attention to my bottom out and rebound settings too during the ride.  I've been riding with this bike for 4 seasons now, so everything is really dialed in and I can make adjustments to cater to my whims.

I use a saddle bag from Revelate Designs and don't have any problems with tire rube, even in really rocky, steep sections where the shock bottoms out. I ride with this saddle bag all winter and keep my extra clothes in it even for short rides.  I can hit jumps with it and small drops to flat without any tire rubing issues what-so-ever. Revelate Designs did an amazing job with this saddle bag.

It is true that a shock diminishes the amount of room for a framebag. But if that's a major deal, take a look at the Rotwild R.R1 FS or, if you have the $ the R.R2 FS.

I'm also totally biased towards full suspension bikes because I ride/race a lot of downhill too so I'm just used to a lot of travel in my bike. Hard tails tend to feel "broken" to me.

I really liked what trail717 about doing a couple trips with your current ride.  That makes a ton of sense to me.  Nothing is better then your own opinion!

It's a tough decision because there's so many subjective decision points.  So geek out on the gear and have fun!

[Marshal]

Here is an example of a Rotwild R.R2 FS outfitted for bikepacking/racing

http://www.jeffkerkove.net/2010_06_01_archive.html   --see Sunday, June 13

I am pretty sure Jeff could have used his HT for the CTR if he wanted to.  Team Ergon is on a different brand FS for 2011--will be interesting to see what Jeff picks, HT or FS, for his next multi day race

Anyway, the Rotwild's "softtail" FS design does lend itself to a full size frame bag. 

[jeffkerkove]

Yes, last year on the Rotwild.  New this year, team gets on board with Canyon.  I am planning on CTR this year as well as some other multi-day adventures.  I am still planning on running a FS frame with SRAM XX.  For me, the FS bike is the ticket.  It is efficient and comfortable.  I didn't find an negative sides to bikepacking last year with a FS bike. From what I have available to me....both last year and this year....the hardtail would beat the hell out of me.  HT bikes have too much World Cup XC racing influence.

http://www.canyon.com/_en/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=2067

Ride what you can afford and makes you happy    Because in the end, it is all about the experience!

[Done]

I rode the CTR last year on a '94 Cannondale Delta V 700 hard tail--with 50mm of front-end travel. It worked.

This year I'm riding a 2011 Cannondale RZ 120-1, with 120mm of full suspension. Hopefully it'll work better!

The truth is that you can ride with whatever you prefer from a functional and/or stylistic perspective. A few people even bikepack with rigid fixies!

[wdlandparker]

Yep, I am one of those rigid fixie people, but I agree with everyone else on that whatever works for this guy or that guy probably will not work for you, you just gotta find your own path I suppose.

[cpblue]

Thanks for all the feedback on the question.  I did some bike shopping yesterday and looked at a number 29" hardtails.  I am going to try a quick overnight trip with my current ride and try and pack it ultra light.  The attached photo is from this past November when I headed south on the Natchez Trace Trail (very-paved).

[cpblue]

My bike is the very heavy, very loaded, one in the front.

[bartspedden]

what's your first trip going to be?

[boddunn]

What have you got in those bags!?!?!?!   
 Here's my bike, fully loaded, on a 2 week fully self supported tour in France. The majority of the bulk is insulation as we went in early Easter and it was a bit nippy in the mornings, my ex only carried her personal items which meant I could have ridden off and cycled back to England which was tempting at times! She packed her stuff, clothes mainly, in 30ltr panniers and that included hair straighteners for some reason...
 I'd be interested to see your kit list if you have one, I think I've got one kicking around if you'd like to see mine.
 

[Slim]

From a pure physics perspective, the answer to your question is really rather simple.  A full suspension bike will take more energy to travel on because some of the energy you apply to the pedals will be absorbed by the shock instead of propelling you forward.  And that means you will have to pedal more/harder on a FS. 

That is not correct. On many trails a full suspension takes less energy to propel, this has been tested with power meters several times. Assuming you don't do your bikepacking in the velodrome. 
Then there is the fatigue to the body from having to use legs/torso as suspension. So the net result might be a lot less effort to cover the same ground.

[bartspedden]

That's awesome news Slim.  I have never read anything like what you're talking about.  Any articles that talk about these studies?  I'd love to learn more.

[Slim]

There was an article on velonews http://singletrack.competitor.com/2009/09/features/face-it-the-26-inch-hardtail-is-dead_3050 last year and I read an article in the big German magazine 'Bike' about some tests Specialized did with Christoph Sauser. http://www.bike-magazin.de/?p=3423

The theory is that you are not lifting the total mass of rider+bike over each and every hump, so there is less work performed on a bumpy trail.

[Slim]

@CPBlue:
As people have said one easy choice is the bike you already have. If you would like a bike to perform better in certain situations we need to know what those are.
Some of the considerations:
Where will you ride? What are the trails/roads like? How much hike a bike? What would you do if you had a breakdown? How long will you be out?

How do you like to ride? what is your main focus with bikepacking? Scenery or ripping down the fastest trails?

How much will you carry? If you have a lot of gear, not only will some bikes offer more packability, but you will be riding very conservatively anyway, and singlespeed is probably not an option anymore. On the other hand if you are carrying more than a 15 lbs or so, it does make it harder to bunnyhop the bike over and weave around obstacles, so more suspension and steering stability would be a benefit.

How much do you weigh? If you are very haevy to begin with and add a lott of gear weight you might end up over the practical adjustibility of most shocks.

[bartspedden]

Hey slim,

I've read these types of articles before and understand what they are discussing. Like the one article said , they did a "semi-scientific" test. I'll admit it now, I was a physics geek for many years, so these articles are way cool, and helpful for cyclist, but they offer no insight into the actual mechanics of the different systems. I was kinda looking for more of physics based analysis. for instance, when you think about the angle of a fork, when it compresses, does it not have to send a force in the opposite direction of travel? I would think the slacker the head tube angle the greater the backwards force would be.  I'm guessing that somewhere there's bike engineering papers written about this stuff, but I've never found it.  Maybe it's hugely proprietary?

[boddunn]

I couldn't read the German one (maybe there's a way of translating Acrobat files?) but the other one was conducted and written up by someone who says they have a bias to full sussers and tested in the context of an XC race by a single person. The data seems compelling but as far as drawing any useful conclusions it's not great.
 My caveat is that I've distrusted the cycling press for ages because their advertising revenue comes from the exact same people they're reviewing and they're plainly biased in some articles I've read; how many times can you say a frame is a game changer or superfluous or "stoppers" are the best ever (again)?

[bartspedden]

For the most part, I think these non-scientific analysis's are helpful for bikers because they get us thinking about what we like and don't like about different bikes.  But they do lack any real science (and I'm guessing most of their readers would get bored too).  Putting a human on a bike (even with a power meter) does very little to tell me about the mechanical benefits of a specific frame design or wheel size or whatever. Why? Because we all ride bikes differently, with different efficiencies. One person can ride a hardtail with style and class and get through a techy section without getting on the gas, so very little effort will show on the power meter.  The same person might not feel comfortable on a similar geometry fs frame and decide to pedal through the techy stuff.  People are just too variable to unbiasly analyze the physics of a mechanical system like a bike.  The anecdotal information gleaned from these types of analysis is a great help to us when we are looking for a bike, but it's just a starting point for our internal conversation, it's not definitive, factual, statements that can be reproduced.

As far as I can tell, the reason why I give a hoot about such non-sense is because even though I tell myself I'm just geeking out on bikes, the truth is that I'm looking for a mechanical advantage. Do I want to go faster? Do I want to go farther? Do I want more reliability? Well I'm American, so it's breed in me to want all 3 (at an affordable price too  )  In the end, it's pretty easy to find reliable gear, and I'd probably be able to go farther/faster if I spent more time refining my training than learning about the physics of bikes   but that's my problem.  

So, I guess for the time being, I'm still lead to believe that my original statement about a hard tail being more efficient is accurate.  When I sit down and look at the basic forces applied to the bike a suspension system is going to absorb energy and turn it into heat.  I think there's only two places to get energy on a bike, stored kinetic energy at the top of a hill, and the person riding the bike.  Any energy that is used to heat the suspension is energy that could of been used to propel the bike forward.

If someone knows something different I'd love to learn more!

I'm guessing though that these more anecdotal analysis's are really what the original question was about, so sorry for getting off topic a bit.  

[boddunn]

I agree 100% with almost everything you said Bart including the bit about going off topic which I didn't help with.
 I've got a set up that I've spent a few years getting comfortable with and now I concentrate on improving my fitness as I find that the most rewarding part of the challenge. I don't race but pushing myself and competing against my limitations is my place on the top podium. Anyway, I can't lose, I'm never second. 
 Anyway, back to the topic at hand (sorry about that)...