10 ms·

I think the claim about de-emphasizing climbing is BS. I just looked at Trek, Giant and Specialized websites and -all- of their mtn bikes ditched the front dera

• skeeter2020 5y ago
  The size of a chain ring doesn't matter, it's the gear ratio, which are larger than ever, making climbing significantly easier. Front Deraillers were ditched because they're (a) now rednundant to get huge ranges and (b) technically inferior (weight, tuning, etc). Mountain bikers raarely (never?) group together in packs on climbs. Even in an XC race you might get one or two riders but even this is odd on a technical climb. I think it's redundant with wider, riser bars, you can't cover the brakes which you should be at almost all times, and they look terrible.
  • jacurtis 5y ago
    The new SRAM Eagle drivetrains have insane gear ratios that we couldn’t have dreamed about even 10 years ago. My new Mountain bike has a 5.4:1 gear ratio at its highest setting. Back when riser bars were popular we were happy to have gear ratios of 2:1.
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > I think the claim about de-emphasizing climbing is BS. I agree. Downhill is more popular than it was previously, but it hasn’t displaced regular biking. People doing shuttle runs and lift-served are a tiny minority. Modern bikes climb better than ever. Bar ends were more of a holdover from road biking that quickly went away when everyone realized how undesirable they were on the mountain.
  • bigfudge 5y ago
    I’m not sure the low slack bikes in vogue now really do climb better tho. Head tube angle is a direct trade off between performance up and down hill.
    • petre 5y ago
      Seat tube too. I have a fixed fork mountain bike with 67/74.5° head tube vs seat tube angles and a gravel bike with the classic 71/73° or what used to be classic on XC bikes. The gravel bike climbs really well with a higher gear but I wouldn't tank over bumpy terrain with it, the mountain bike is really stable on descents and on flats, climbs okay. Of course a MTB with 63/78° like the new Marin El Roy probably doesn't climb that well?
    • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      You should try some of the newer bike geometries. It's amazing what they can get away with. I'd take a modern slack head tube geometry over an older bike for climbing any day. I've owned plenty of bikes through the years and I'm not going back.
• monkmartinez 5y ago
  > Or perhaps aesthetics play more a part of mtnbike design than functionality? Nailed it. This is true for almost all bicycle endeavors save actual professional racing. Even then, a pro rider that isn't Egan, Sagan, or Froome is going to ride what the factory says to ride. If they (Specialized, Cannondale, Canyon, Etc.) need to pimp a new product, those dudes will pimp the product. Money talks.
  • SavantIdiot 5y ago
    The few years when everyone was using curved and tapered main tubes was like shag rugs and paneling, IMHO. I miss the big fat cannodale brazes, or the Tom Richie flourishes on the headtube and dropouts. But I don't miss needing massive rework to replace a rear derailleur dropout after every crash. :|
  • bigfudge 5y ago
    Disc brakes are exactly this. For racing they are stupid because you don’t need better brakes and spare wheels no longer fit. Only ineos seems to have held out because for stage racing and gt the costs are so much higher. Quickstep used discs first because in one day racing a puncture at the wrong time always meant you lost, so discs didn’t make a material difference.
    • vbsteven 5y ago
      Disc brakes have their use on road bikes in bad weather conditions. Descending at 90km/h on wet roads with rim brakes is not fun, especially on full carbon rims. I wish I had them in my race days.
      • mgarfias 5y ago
        Another use: on my oldests bmx race bike, he has a disc brake setup. It is like 300% easier to work on. Pull the axle, and the wheel falls out. No futzing with the caliper to get the wheel off the frame, not concerns about getting the wheel on the exact correct spot.
• localhost 5y ago
  A couple of things I can think of: bars are a lot wider than they used to be which make it impractical add bar ends to, and bar ends increase the likelihood of hooking vegetation on a descent.
• Gualdrapo 5y ago
  Got a Trek Xcaliber 8 this year and the 1x drivetrain turned out to be like godsend. I can climb much better, not much hassle while cleaning/mantaining the bike and it's a little less weight from it. If any, 1x drivetrains would de-emphasize going on flat terrain - sometimes you feel like that 30x11 ratio falls too short for a flat road.
• jrace 5y ago
  Today, maybe, but in the late 90’s when bar ends were popular there was a huge shit from cross country to downhill. Thats when we say full suspension get popular, and ski hill lift assisted runs getting more common. Now i see more people shifting back to cross country. At least where I live.
  • dr-detroit 5y ago
    Bar ends were obsoleted by wider straight bars the article is of poor quality welcome to hacker news.
• nicpottier 5y ago
  Single front chainrings came about from having wider and wider ranges on the rear and suspension designs being made possible by ditching the front derailleur. Yes, there's some top end lost but the range is more the same than different than doubles or even triples. As someone who has been mountain biking for over 25 years I would say the statement that uphill has been de-emphasized over downhill is absolutely correct. Enduro racing (where the uphills aren't even timed) is a nice example of that.
  • brabel 5y ago
    > uphill has been de-emphasized over downhill Why is that? I used to do mountain biking and I loved the challenge of climbing a large hill more than the adrenaline of descending it, which I found a bit too risky to my liking :D ...
    • davidw 5y ago
      Good question. I grew up mountain biking (did my first race 31 years ago) and it was an eclectic mix of people who seemed to enjoy back country single track the most, which included both the climb up and the descent. I'm still in that camp - I don't enjoy 'shaped' (jumps, drops, banked corners etc...) trails as much as more natural looking ones.
      • seryoiupfurds 5y ago
        To the extent that video sets trends, sending it off wicked drops makes for better video than grinding uphill.
      • petre 5y ago
        Me too. Probably more people who mountain biked in the 80s and 90s or XC types. I'm still doing it, mostly on a modern fixed fork mountain bike.
      • DebtDeflation 5y ago
        Check out the xbiking subreddit. Dedicated to "adventure biking" which is the entirety of off-road riding that exists apart from fast downhill technical single track.
• anon776 5y ago
  On modern mountain bikes you want to be seated for climbs, thats why their geometry is so different from a bike made 10-15 years ago. Also, first time you catch a bar end on a branch and get sent over the handle bars you will ditch them. (at least I did)
  • erikpukinskis 5y ago
    I believe you, but how does the geometry help on climbs, I can’t quite picture it?
    • lwansbrough 5y ago
      In my experience you actually don’t need additional traction on the front tire during ascents. You want more traction on the back tire, so leaning forward is more likely to cause slipping. Wider bars makes balancing easier and frames designed to keep the back wheel on the ground (by distributing more weight to the back tire) make it easier to climb.
      • midnightclubbed 5y ago
        Back in the days of 26" hard-tails you definitely needed weight over the front wheel to keep it on the ground - there was a fine balancing act of keeping enough weight over the front to not lose control while keeping that back wheel from spinning out. Modern bike geometry is so so much better! (having tires 2.3+ inches wide helps with traction too!).
        • dahart 5y ago
          Yup, I needed to use a travel-adjust fork on my 26" full-suspension to get up steep inclines without looping. The 29er with today's geometry makes looping on a steep section so much less likely.
        • dev_tty01 5y ago
          Pull on the bars in the direction of the rear tire/ground contact patch. This leads to more rear traction and makes a big difference in sketchy steep climbs.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• zerkten 5y ago
  > too much risk of hooking another rider As soon as you look at them, the potential for hooking should be obvious. In very average use you won't see many incidents because mountain bikes are often like SUVs and don't see much dirt. As soon as you push them closer to the extremes of close riders, or terrain, then they are an immediate liability. I would posit that the (professional) riders driving the fashion are also some of those most likely to experience the issues. They'd still have a desire for ergonomics which drives whatever alternative was suggested.
• johnconnolly 5y ago
  A big factor is the geometry of modern bikes tend to have a steeper seat tube angle and longer top tube (longer reach). This allows the rider to climb comfortably and more efficiently in a seated position. I think bar ends are more helpful when standing on your pedals while climbing.
• PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  I'm a casual rider of a mountain bike, almost always on streets. So I'm no expert. But this guy's reasoning doesn't make sense. I looked up what a "drop bar" is, and it goes DOWN; this lowers your posture profoundly and is NOT a substitute for an extension that goes UP from your handlebars. Then the idea of only going downhill. Is this really a thing? That seems lame. I get approving comments on my early-'90s Trek 920 every time I take it out. I was curious as to why, and a guy at a bike shop said that nobody makes an all-purpose bike like that anymore. To me the over-specialization is antithetical to the go-anywhere promise of a mountain bike.
  • rconti 5y ago
    Drop bars also have brake lever hoods that function sort of like bar ends. Most my road bike riding is done from the hoods. Both give you a neutral hand position.
  • petre 5y ago
    Surly still makes a lot of all purpose bikes. The big brands also have a model or two, Trek has the 520 and the current 920 but they're drop bar models, also Giant with their Tough Road line. But they're not really that marketed since then one wouldn't need multiple bikes.
  • lostlogin 5y ago
    There are some great tyres out there now too. Pretty slick in the middle and knobbly on the sides, so both road and trail work. I am mystified by standard gearing on newer bikes though. It may be due to my height or a dumb riding style, but I basically only use the top 4-5 gears.
    • PostThisTooFast 5y ago
      I had to replace all my drive components and the new ratio is lower. I spend way more time in the upper gears than before. It was pretty cool learning all about the various components. Less cool getting through only one step per day before finding out I had to order ANOTHER goddamned special tool to unscrew something. In the end, the bike works great. But I didn't expect the gearing ratio to change.
• crispyambulance 5y ago
  > too much risk of hooking another rider I don't think so. Freak accidents aside, I think it would have been well documented if that were the case. Think about it, in any scenario where someone is being hit forcefully by a bar-end there's also another rider and a bike behind that bar-end. At speed, a bruise from bar-end is the least of their problems. > Or perhaps aesthetics play more a part of mtnbike design than functionality? Oh, hell yes. There was a time from the mid-90's up through a some years ago when almost every mass-market bike had to have "suspension". What this meant in practice was a crappy useless fork suspension that did nothing but add weight and subtract from the overall quality of the bike. Ironically the category of "mountain bike" had the perception of toughness when it was anything but tough especially for street riding. In the last decade or so, it seems more people are using bikes for real practical uses. They realize they don't want a 45lb "mountain bike" with flimsy doodads like fork suspension and cheap grip shifters. It's now possible to get a simple street bike in the mass-market with not too many frills that is good quality and will last longer and have easier maintenance than a "mountain bike".
  • vladvasiliu 5y ago
    > Think about it, in any scenario where someone is being hit forcefully by bar-end there's also another rider and a bike behind that bar-end. At speed, a bruise from bar-end is the least of their problems. I think GP's point about hooking another rider might be about the bar end acting as a hook and getting caught in something, as opposed to just hitting. So yeah, of course behind the bar end there's the rest of the bike and the rider, but what could be just two riders "touching" (and, granted, possibly falling), can turn into a worse situation if the bars of one bike catch something on the other bike (say a backpack strap) causing the first bike to steer abruptly and bringing both bikes down together. Not sure how often this happens, but I wouldn't be surprised of this possibly happening when I see the way people ride bikes around my city, bunching up one against the other, turning unpredictably, etc.
    • hinkley 5y ago
      Road bike handlebars have the same problems due to the brake hoods. That got a little safer when cables started routing under the handlebar tape instead of sticking up and slightly out. The consequences of entangling might be a little higher on a mountain bike, but that depends on the situation. Mountain bikers aren't being crowded by semi trailers as often as road bikes, but road bikes aren't flying off embankments into trees very often. I see that there are more than a couple of models of MTB bar-ends that look like brake hoods. That's probably pretty close to the best compromise you can do, without staging a major educational campaign about how human grip strength works (middle, ring and thumb do nearly all of the work)
• charles_f 5y ago
  > I think the claim about de-emphasizing climbing is BS. Depends on what you use. Cross Country have much less compromise than enduros. On these, descent is the priority though, that's why you get slacker and slacker frames every year, heavy suspension systems and large tires that weigh the same as a dead elephant. The best sign that they're getting closer is that I'm feeling fine with going to the bike park in Whistler with my enduro, which I'd never have tried 10y ago. Of course going up is always important and all these are not an entire sacrifice, powertrains are much better than they used to, locking sus actually works, and don't get me started with droppers! But try to go up on a light hardtail retrobike sometimes, and then down. These were optimized for ups
  • bigfudge 5y ago
    Are powertrains really much better? I have retro shimsno lx on one bike and it’s really not much different to current slx in terms of shifting perf. Ratios not so good admittedly and triples look fugly!
    • ianhowson 5y ago
      Powertrains are much, much better. - You can shift under load (usually) - Shifts are a little faster - Clutches give less chainslap - Narrow-wide rings hold the chain freakishly well
• dheera 5y ago
  > too much risk of hooking another rider If this really was the case they should have made a backwards-steering bike like this instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx1V5KT1Lwo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx1V5KT1Lwo With bikes with straight handlebars, if you graze a fence with the handlebar, the bike will steer INTO the fence, whereas if you have backwards handlebars the bike will auto-steer away from the fence or whatever you bump into.
  • avidiax 5y ago
    A regular bike auto-steers away. The wheel pulls toward the obstacle, which counter-steers so that you will fall/turn away from the obstacle. Reverse steering would just trip you into the obstacle.
• notatoad 5y ago
  The new "crazy-low gearing" isn't crazy at all - new hub designs allow the smallest gear on the cassette to be 10 tooth instead of 11, so a correspondingly smaller front chainring can be used to get the same gear ratios as before.
• dr-detroit 5y ago
  The article is missing a lot of information. Bar end are significantly inferior to extended width bars and last I check iOS/android didn't preclude you from reading existing text on the web (yet) so this information should be freely available.