I felt beat up after riding my 69er rigid for 12 miles. I’m not convinced that there’s an overall benefit to it, so I went back to my old ways of a front suspension 26er.

But I do have another project bike I’m currently working on that may or may not incorporate some steel…more to come!

The ODIS is fantastic. It is extremely stiff but steel too so you get the minor dampening qualities with it. I considered the Jenson “Zion” 29er fork but $30 sale price and a couple of bad reviews(on Jenson) made me turn to the ODIS. I’m glad I did. I’ve got a 7″ rotor on mine. Love it, love it, love it!

Of course, I try to ride between riding my Fully, Geary mountain bike and my SS 29er with some squish so it’s fresh in my mind on how the other two bikes perform. Also, I have a trail that I am building so I get to compare the characteristics of each bike on the same trail.

I will admit, like the 29er, handling at slower speeds can be a little sketchy but the trade off is the roll over you get with the bigger front wheel up front.

How do you like your set up? What are some of the differences you felt right away? I’ve only had a few miles on mine and I’ll be riding it tomorrow, but for now I’m curious to know what your input is.

Oh and you know how you mentioned, “Just like saying 29er are slow turning, I think people just think that because people say it’s so.” Well that shouldn’t be an issue with me cuz, like Jeremy’s article, I have M.A.D and I’m F.A.T.

Thanks,
RL

The same goes with crankarm length. I call Bulls%$t on folks who say they can feel the difference between 172.5 and 175mm or any other combination.

And I’m not saying the way RL has the Reken setup is necessarily bad, I’m just giving how I think it will handle and am interested in hearing if I’m right or not once he spends a lot of time on it and does a full review.

I’ve ridden my home built rigid 69er on a very technical trail and didn’t notice any ill effects from the “tweaked” geometry. As a matter of fact, that’s where the advantage of a 69er really shines if you ask me. And my bike is a 15″ Hard Rock with a Karate Monkey fork up front.

Everyone has to decide for themselves, but no one should look down on someone because they ride something different than they do.

It’s all about having fun on your bike, regardless of the hoop size. Ride on brotha…

RL: I agree, it’s the job of the bike company to figure out the geometry, which I’m sure Reken did with this bike, but it’s built to be a 26er with a slacker geometry, which isn’t a bad thing. I’m just wondering how it’s going to ride. Right now I’m looking at the specs “on paper” because that’s all I have, but it seems like the bike will be thrown way back since it’s already a slack head angle of 70 degrees and then you push it slacker with a bigger fork underneath it. My guess is it’ll be killer stable on straight aways but be a bitch to handle when it comes to any tight turns and maneuvers. But yeah, that’s my guess “on paper” so I’m interested to see what you have to say after actually riding it.

Also, do you have any rigid 26er forks laying around? I know some people have been able to successfully squeeze a 29er wheel/tire into a 26er fork. This allows you to keep the geometry closer to how the bike was intended to be and still get that big wheel feel up front.