I don't want to add just another voice in the peanut gallery, but I have had similar experiences recently. I bought my first "real" mountain bike earlier this year, a pretty standard aluminum hardtail 29er from Raleigh. By "pretty standard," it's geometry is the kind of mass-market stuff that Rivendell geometry departs from: steepish seat tube angle, short chainstays, long top tube, relatively low bars. To keep the reach in check, I even sized down a size from the recommended, very non-Riv indeed. Previous to this, a lot of my off-road exploring had been done on a Long Haul Trucker with Albatross bars, so probably somewhat similar to your experience on your Atlantis.
At first, I was pleasantly surprised by the climbing ability of the Raleigh, but in retrospect I think it was the fact that it had the lowest gears of any bike I've ridden recently, as well as the traction afforded by 29x2" knobbies versus the 700x42 file treads on the LHT. On longer rides with a lot of climbing, however, I definitely get worn out on that bike. I think a lot of this is down to the riding position: the wide, low flat bars force me into one position, with very little options for changing my hand position or back angle. I plan to cut down the bars and add Ergon grips with built-in barends to address some of this. However, especially off-road, not only does the component spec of the bike force me into this low position, but its geometry demands it in order to maintain traction and handling. Specifically, the short chainstays and long front center/top tube force a certain approach to climbing. I need to lean low over the handlebars and sometimes slide forward on the seat in order to keep traction on that front wheel and be able to properly direct the bike. The times that I've had to put a foot down going uphill on this bike, it hasn't been because I've run out of gas, but because the front wheel has started to wander off my line and I haven't been able to reign it back in. If you read mainstream mountain biking mags and bike reviews, right now there is kind of a self-reinforcing obbession with this type of geometry on the part of designers and reviewers. People are obsessed with short chainstays, long front centers, short stems; they describe such geometry as "aggressive," "playful," and "fun" (that "aggressive" and "playful" are synonyms for each other is indicative of the general techno-cultural problem with mountain biking these days). And I think this is further reinforced by the type of riding featured in MTB magazines and videos: high speed, big jumps, riding up and down ledgy technical features. All of this leaves those of us who want to get away for a few hours, to enjoy the escape and beauty of riding trails for a few hours but not feel like we're riding out of the depth of our bicycles, out in the cold somewhat. If you look at the Surly marketing around the Krampus, you'll see that they designed this bike very much in the mainstream conception of "fun" geometry: short chainstays, even with giant tires; long front center/TT, short stem, low-ish handlebars. A lot of the early photos of the bike featured guys wheelieing them and boosting them off jumps. I wonder if optimizing the geometry around this type of riding has made it not as ideal for your type of riding, specifically grinding up long, steep climbs. Perhaps an ECR, with it's touring geometry ,might be different. I've never ridden one, and I've only ridden someone else's Krampus (Tyler from Cycle Monkey's, coincidentally) around the block, so I'm not really in a position to say. Certainly, I'm intrigued by the ECR myself; even though I don't really see myself doing long bikepacking tours, the fact that it's geometry, at least on paper, might allow a position closer to that of my LHT, has me interested. I'm also super interested to try the long-chainstayed Hunqapillar proto featured on the BLUG a few weeks ago: high handlebars at a comfortable reach, relatively slack seat tube, long chainstays to keep everything planted even while maintaining an upright riding position. For the moment, I've accepted that my current MTB is less than ideal from a fit perspective, and I appreciate it more for its ability to help me stay in control going downhill, much the same as you. On Friday, April 25, 2014 8:27:22 PM UTC-7, Anne Paulson wrote: > > > I'm a big fan of low, low gears. I have them on both my Atlantises; my > Roadeo has pretty low gears too considering I never carry much on it. > People always say to me, "I don't want lower gears because then I couldn't > balance." I never understood that. I don't have a bit of problem riding at > 2.5 mph for long periods of time when I'm climbing something ridiculously > steep on one of my Rivendell bikes. > > But now I understand. I thought when I bought my new Surly Krampus > mountain bike I'd be able to climb even steeper dirt roads than I now can > climb on my Atlanti. I thought, I have an absurdly low gear on the Krampus > (15.6 inches, something like that), I have all the traction in the world, I > can climb anything. > > But no. I'm finding that I climb *worse* on the Krampus. It's frustrating. > There are dirt sections that I have no trouble on with the Atlantis, with > smooth tires, that I can't climb on the Krampus with the knobbies. > > What's going on here? Front-end geometry? Wheel weight? Bottom bracket > height? I'm beginning to think I should have bought the Surly ECR (like > several people recommended) instead of the Krampus. Or maybe I just need to > learn how to climb on this new bike. > > On the other hand, when I bought the bike I also thought I'd be able to go > down steep trails that I'm afraid to descend on the Atlantis, and that has > proved to be true. My husband took one look at my new bike and said, Wow, > you have better traction on that than you have on foot. When I apply the > brakes on a steep downhill, the bike *slows down* instead of skidding. > > -- > -- Anne Paulson > > It isn't a contest. Enjoy the ride. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. 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