Trails

duffshoe7

Joined: A long time ago...

maybe you should know what your doing first....... :?

Joined: A long time ago...

The weight of your bike should be less important than the TT length.  Longer top-tube and drop outs, the easier it will be to jump.  Remember that is within reason to your size, if your 6' you should be 21" or more on the TT.  Drop outs come in all sizes, although recently people have been into really small rear triangles, like 13", I prefer at least 15", my best frame I ever owned was 17" the best jumping bike in the world.  They don't make it anymore, and unless you regular a bmx track, you will never find one so I'm not even going to bother with its name.

Joined: A long time ago...

The reason you want a longer frame, besides giving you a bit more room to move with long legs, is because the longer you can get your wheelbase, the straighter your bike will fly. if youre a beginner, lightweight is the least of your worries. you want a STRONG bike thats gonna stand up to all the casing and bike throwing and tree smashing that youre gonna put it through as a beginning trail rider. a heavier bike, (30-35lbs) will do you real nice. itll have enough mass to fly in nice level arcs. no squirrely kicking out to the sides.

get big bars. i cant stress this enough. i know the kids love to run these tiny cutdown things, but youre 6'1, 220lbs, and you want to ride trails. that means youre riding FAST and you want control and leverage the you cant get from your average 25" wide 7" rise bar, go with something a bit bigger, S&M slambars, Kink Badger Bars, Metal Sasquatch bars, all excellent choices. 8" rise will help you out with lifting that front end, and 26"-28" width will provide excellent balance and control for ripping fullspeed through berms and keeping it straight tracking through rhythm sections. 

third thing is good tires. they'll help you avoid flats, and keep you pointed where you want to go.tire sizes will read like this: the wheel size, in our case will always be 20", and then a second number, the width of the tire when inflated. for a front tire you want something nice and wide that'll bite into loose dirt, right around 2" is good. for the back, i like to use something a bit smaller, 1.85-1.95" seems to help clear the frame when your wheel gets all out of wack. helps keep things running nice.  i recomend a primo dirtmonster 20x2.1 in the front and an odyssey dirtpath 20x1.95 in the back.


basically what i'd do is go to a bmx mailorder site, pickup a complete with at least a 20.75" tt, preferably longer, and then with it, order some big bars, and a good set of trail tires, and get digging!  so hope this helps and it didnt make your eyes bleed or anything, i know sometimes i rant.

Joined: A long time ago...

thanks matt, i appriciate the insight

Joined: A long time ago...

what the hell happend to the poll?