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Old 06-14-2023, 06:48 AM
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Hilltopperny Hilltopperny is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Lassellsville NY
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I think the first geometry chart is closer to a road bike than the second, but the second looks to have more toe clearance and slightly slacker head tube angle.

I personally like a more neutral feel for my off road bikes. I have had aggressive geometry fat tire road bikes that did pretty well over most of the terrain you are trying to cover, but they were not as good over gnarlier terrain or single track.

My latest build has a 71.5 HT angle and 74 ST angle and a dropped stay to fit a fat tire while maintaining a 43cm chain stay and fitting a 2.1" 650b knobby with good clearance. I did The Black Fly Challenge on this set up and it handled everything pretty well, but I am not much of a climber at 220lbs. My neck hurt coming down the single-track at the end, but the chunky tires and bike held their line through the mud and tracked better then my more road oriented bikes in that section. It also did better in the sand and in general over the bigger rock strewn sections.

My Kirk Terraplane is a road bike with decent clearances. With 32mm tires I can do everything described above with the exception of really sandy and bigger rocks. It does everything really well, but struggles on the actual spots where a more mtb oriented gravel bike would get you through. Still a very capable bike if you are comfortable riding 32ish tire. The bike just eats up washboard and stays planted! If it had room for more tire it would likely track well over the sandy and larger rock strewn stuff as well. Geometry is attached.



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