Most suitable fork travel for The NL

[Arturito]

Hi everyone,

I am new here to the forum, which I got to know thanks to a very friendly mountain biker I randomly met in Rotterdam. Oh ja, sorry voor het Engels, ik ben bang dat mijn niveau in Nederlands niet goed genoeg is! Apologies for that.

If you must know, I did ride mountain bike as a youngster but then switched to BMX for about 10 years. Now working in your lovely country, I am thinking of getting back into mountain biking. This seems like thinking the unthinkable in such a flat land!

Which is why I am kindly asking for your advice. I am not a big XC fan and please correct me if I am wrong, but I reckon that Dutch trails are made of mostly fast (very flat) tracks.

Therefore, would you recommend riding a fork with 140mm of travel in The Netherlands? (Keep in mind that I ride an enduro style hardtail, no full sus here). The idea is that I would like to be able to ride the same setup when travelling to mountainous regions (e.g. France/Switzerland). I need my bike to be alive and reactive, but I don't want to get an inefficient setup that would only pump on the flat and suck all my energy.

Any recommendations?
Cheers,
Arthur

[suravida]

My 29er long travel hardtail is also 140mm and that also works fine on the flatter Dutch tracks. (eventhough my main bike for the lowland tracks is a rigid singlespeed Krampus) Luckily you are from the Rotterdam area (as am I) so you got some quite nice tracks in the neighbourhood: Bergschenhoek, Zoetermeer, Vlaardingen, Oostvoorne among others. Of course none of these are natural but they are made to be interesting.

[aurelius]

100-120mm XC is all you need in Holland.

[ak-77]

If you're buying a bike strictly for use in NL, with a focus on the purpose built trails around Rotterdam I would recommend 100 mm or thereabouts.
If you're asking whether you should dump the 140 hardtail because you're in flat country now, I'd say don't. Unless beating Strava records is your thing of course.

[Bergbike]

Oh ja, sorry voor het Engels, ik ben bang dat mijn niveau in Nederlands niet goed genoeg is!

Sure sounds good enough. (or did you take a few minutes and use some spelling checker for this sentence...). Btw, a few MTB terms have no Dutch versions: hardtail, full suspension, enduro, all terrain, downhill, crank, frame, mountain bike, and suspectedly more. Saying these in a Dutch manner, well just sounds lame (except for bergbike of course ). Some of these may even be valid imported Dutch words. There are also words that simply have the same spelling: lamp, derailleur.

[sik]

Welcome,

with a solid bmx background and an active riding style 140mm will be a bit much, but not impossible.
maybe you can find a rigid fork that doesn't change the geometry of your bike too much?
where are you from? the dutch trails are probably not very technical compared to what you are used to, maybe a rigid fork will make them a bit more demanding?

this site shows the locations of mountainbike routes in the Netherlands: http://mtbroutes.nl/index.php/kaart-nederland" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[boltonpece]

en is kennelijk ook al eerder geprobeerd want de torx en inbus is flink beschadigd. Ik wil daarom de achterrem maar vervangen voor een ander systeem, bijvoorbeeld een Shimano SLX. Vraag kan dit ongestraft als ik een afgevulde set bestel en kan de adapter en rotor worden hergebruikt? Wie heeft ervaring met dit type ATB?

[datang]

Wrong topic boltonpece?

[Arturito]

Oh ja, sorry voor het Engels, ik ben bang dat mijn niveau in Nederlands niet goed genoeg is!

Sure sounds good enough. (or did you take a few minutes and use some spelling checker for this sentence...).

Nee hoor, geen Google Translate of zo. Ik kom uit Frankrijk maar ik woon hier voor 2 jaar gewoon, dus ik kan een beetje in het Nederlands praten. Maar het is helaas nog niet perfect!

Bedankt iedereen voor de snelle antwoord!

I guess I should get a taste of what it is to ride in The Netherlands and will figure it out pretty quickly. Thanks Suravida for the suggestions about the trails around Rotterdam, always good to know.

As aurelius mentioned it, 100-120mm is about what I thought would be more than enough around here. A rigid fork might spice things up indeed, sik. Something to think about.

It's good to see that the Dutch MTB community is so enthusiastic.

[suravida]

Let me know if you wanna ride together, always nice to show some body that the Dutch routes are not extremely boring

[Pat.]

Let me know if you wanna ride together, always nice to show some body that the Dutch routes are not extremely boring

And trust me on that, Survida knows his trails

[Lars TB]

Well, the dedicated MTB routes are fairly bumpy. And since it is mainly flat, you're constantly pedaling. Seated.

Unless you are well trained, I would recommend something like 120 mm. Front AND rear!!




(but just ride your bike!)