I’ve started compiling a list of gravel/MTB races. If you have any suggestions, feel free to pass along! I may do the cascade 100 next year in Bend.
Nice! Yea we do HC100 every other year or so depending on life, races/events, family. Mike and his crew do a great job of putting on other events including the season ending MTB Ring of Fire this coming weekend. Check out his Mudslinger email and site as almost if not all are definitely worth doing!
Gorge Gravel Grinder and the Oregon Trail Gravel series are also worth checking out. Then there’s the GF series here in WA put on by RideViciousCycle. Not at the same level as the OR stuff but lots of new areas and riders to mix it up.
Anyone on the new Mach4 SL want to chime in on how it has compared to other bikes you have owned?
I had the version prior to the recent update, but now have the Gen7 Epic Evo.
can’t say I love the EE over my old Mach.
I’m not convinced on the full suspension vs a hardtail. Bigger 2.4 tires, forgiving carbon hoops and rear triangle design give plenty of Cush. Bike companies want to sell you a more expensive bike and this is how they do it. yes, I agree there are tracks and areas where full suss may prevail, but not many IMO.
@mcneese.chad can we move this to the unpopular opinions thread? 
The only performance advantage a hard tail has over a modern full suspension bike these days is weight. While there are situations where the weight advantage might outweigh all the advantages of full suspension, it’s pretty niche and highly dependent on the rider. Even the pros with the pull to choose between a HT, FS, and the psuedo-HT’s (ie - world cup and supercal) typically opt for the bigger travel bikes on most courses. And for an amateur who is typically much less skilled and less fit, the FS gives a big edge in most situations. To imply that the bike manufacturers are “fabricating” the advantage of FS over HT to drive sales is silly IMO.
I know folks who are plenty fast and just like racing a hard tail even on courses where a FS has a big advantage, nothing wrong with riding whatever setup you enjoy. But that doesn’t make it the fastest setup for most riders on most courses.
You have to be pretty light for the weight difference to really matter as well, ie in the pro ranks it is usually just the women under 120pounds.
Your wife will love it, my wife picked up a mach 4sl 2 years ago, and it has turned mountain biking into something she enjoys in stead of tolerates. We have some pretty tame trails basically out our door, it used to be my wife would jump on the trainer to get an easy week night ride in, now she will head out on her mountain bike. Proud husband moment seeing her gladly jump out on the mtb solo.
That’s some real pride no doubt! Always great seeing the significant others that can enjoy the same hobbies.
My wife is pumped about using the shotgun seat with the kids. I had one for my old mtb and our daughter, but eventually we’ll be able to get our son (1 now) as well. It’ll be great if the daughter doesn’t outgrow hers and we can have them on both bikes for some family rides.
XC race I’m doing this weekend is looking like it could be pretty muddy. Rather than swapping tires on my XC wheelset, I’m thinking about using the wheels from my trailbike thats already setup with Rekons. XC bike has 180F/R rotors, but the trail bike is 200/180.
Should I grab a 180mm rotor to swap onto that wheelset or adapt the XC bike front brake to 200mm?
Especially if they’re centerlocks, I think swapping rotors between Wheelsets is the easiest. Just have to remember that you probably don’t want to mix / match pad compounds so may need to clean / lightly sand rotor, maybe scuff pad surface if they’re glazed, and then re-bed? Also may need to re-align caliper but need to do that in either case.
Not sure this is any easier than just swapping tires though.
Yeah problem is, XC wheelset is centerlock and the trail wheel is 6 bolt. I’ve never had too many caliper alignment issues swapping wheels on my roadbike, so hopefully don’t have much problem here. Definitely need to consider pad compounds.
Have you tried Rekons in the wet? This might belong in the Unpopular Opinions thread but I absolutely hate this tire in wet conditions. What are you running on the XC wheelset?
Recently switched to Dubnitol RR on the XC bike. Prior to that I only ran Rekons for years. I don’t love them in this kind of slippery mud I’m expecting, but I’m confident I can keep the bike right side up even if its a bit slower. I almost never ride in conditions like that outside of when it pops up in a race, so I don’t want to buy a dedicated mud tire.
I’m a hardtail guy, but I really dont think your right here. You shouldnt be choosing hardtail for performance. You can argue it can help your skillset, simpler maintaince, less to think about, but for the most part, your going to spend your time and money on parts that hopefully get you reaching into a some of the performance benefits of full suspension.
I for sure gave up speed in years I was fast, but chose a hardtail. Not really bummed about that, I wasn’t racing at the top edge of the sport. This year I got on my first XC(ish) FS frame since I snapped my Trek 6 or 7 years ago, its way faster, with more traction, and less of a beating on my body (ie fatigue).
Am I still getting excited about replacing the void my hardtail left, hell yes I am, but the reason isnt performance.
If it was me I would run the Dubnitals*
*Use at own risk.
I know everyone “feels” that the FS is faster with better performance yet outside of bike company marketing materials I really haven’t seen anything to indicate a FS provides this better performance. I am in the market for a new XC bike: as a science based website, can someone share an article you used to make the FS decision?
All I can find if people sharing there opinions and feelings with no hard data. In the meantime bike companies are charging us an extra $2-3000 for a shock and pivot bearing that cost them a tenth of that. Not being argumentative just honestly curious. All is see during races and group rides is the back end bobbing up and down, that seems like wasted energy to me…hence my intrigue. Thanks in advance.
It totally depends on the terrain IMO. To ride a hardtail fast on technical terrain (up and down) requires more skill and concentration than a full suss. At least in my experience, skill and concentration are in short supply when I’m close to max heart rate.
I race against people on hardtails who are much faster than me, and also when I raced on a hardtail I beat people on FS bikes.
I don’t think you’ll find concrete scientific data to steer you either way and you seem to have made up your mind to buy a hardtail, so why not go ahead and do that?
How do you define performance?
Most people selecting an FS do it for the combination of ability to handle technical terrain and the reduction in fatigue over long courses.
The general consensus for measuring fatigue on long courses is RPE - which is literally feelings, so 
From your post it sounds like the bike companies shouldn’t get anything for the 2-3 year period they invest in designing, prototyping, testing? With full suspension the geometry and suspension kinematic are generally considered very difficult to design.
How much time have you spent riding one? For me, it’s night and day difference on technical terrain. But I also didn’t grow up riding/racing mtb’s, it’s only been ~10 years starting in my mid 40’s that I started racing them. I still have the hard tail I started on, but it hangs in the garage because I find the fs much more fun, safe, and makes me a much faster and more confident rider. I still remember the first day a buddy let me try his fs, total game changer for me. Does a fs make me faster by compensating for my mediocre mtb skills? Absolutely. Could riding the ht more improve my skills? Probably. But I’m never gonna be Nino and I think most amateurs fall into the same category. And I can’t speak for why the vast majority of pros prefer fs, but results matter and they wouldn’t be riding fs if it wasn’t faster.