Can you use a hardtail for downhill

Sooner or later, you will progress to the point when you feel like you can ride a bit more aggressively. Usually, an average mountain biker starts with cross country riding on a hardtail bike and slowly progresses through trail riding. From this point, people tend to become more and more downhill oriented. Yes, you can! Riding a hardtail bike downhill can help develop better mountain bike skills, so much that professional downhill racers often practice on hardtail bikes.

In short, riding a hardtail downhill will be a lot more challenging and less forgiving for each mistake you make. You will need to know your limits and start slow until you get a feel for it.

In return, that increased danger and difficulty will make you much more skilled. However, I will tell you in detail how you can adapt your hardtail bike to be better and more durable at downhill riding.

Some time ago, I used to have a hardtail cross country mountain bike only. Buying one was too expensive for me at that time, so I gave it a shot with my hardtail. It was scary at first, and I could never go as fast as some of my friends did. Eventually, I understood the trail and how to progress through certain jumps and corners much better than they would, thanks to the increased difficulty of hardtail downhill riding.

Not having a rear suspension will force you to think a lot when going downhill. That, to me, is another good reason to ride a hardtail downhill. You will ride much faster on any mountain trail. Learning how to choose the best path on a trail while going fast is probably the most underrated skill for an average mountain biker to have.

Usually, expensive bikes mean lighter bikes. But what about different categories? A suspension is quite heavy compared to rigid forks or rear triangles. A hardtail bike means there is no rear suspension.

That saves at least a few pounds of weight. Less weight means the bike can be thrown around easier. By thrown around, I mean that you can go over any technical stuff with less momentum and focus more on your own weight and balance. A rigid frame means better power transfer from pedals to the ground.

However, once you need to get back on the top of the trail, you can actually pedal back instead of pushing the bike by your side. They will never be as fast or as capable as full-suspension bikes on downhill trails. Hardtail mountain bikes lose a lot of speed over bumps and technical sections.

To reduce that speed loss and increase the quality of riding, you must have a perfect skillset. In order to make them efficient on downhill trails, you must develop that skill, and you will be grateful that you did.

Having a rear suspension means you can go fast over all the bumps and through any technical section. The rear shock will absorb most of the stuff on the terrain. Not only that, but you gain extra confidence to go faster, knowing there is a suspension that will help you with your balance if you hit some unexpected obstacle.

What this has to do with downhill riding? If you hit the same trail over and over again, all those bumps and hits you take on a hardtail bike start to add up. Having a rear suspension means you can ride for longer periods of time without feeling like someone beat you up. While pro downhill trails usually require more flow than jumping over stuff, an average trail will be mixed with all kinds of obstacles.

There are 2 main reasons why someone would choose to ride a hardtail bike on a downhill course. They are training themselves to ride better.

If you can imagine going downhill and everytime you hit a root, a rough rock, or a drop, you feel it. You will naturally try to avoid hitting such harsh obstacles.

You will choose a better path. Trail bikes typically have hefty suspension so they can ride over rough rocks and such and not feel a thing. The bike is absorbing it. With a hardtail, you are absorbing it. So you can see where riding a hardtail forces a rider to ride a little smarter and just run over everything.

This was my first question too. If you take a hardtail mountain bike on a downhill course, will it break it? How much can you safely do without tearing up your bike? So the answer is it depends. The details are where you find out just well. Many hardtail bikes are XC bikes so the frames and wheels are not as heavy duty as trail bikes.

That being said, some hardtails do have the features and performance to crush downhill trails with confidence. These hardtails are often referred to as all-mountain hardtails and are highly popular with mountain bikers due to their simplicity and high performance. The features that set them apart are their aggressive geometry, beefy front suspension, chunky tires, and high-performance hydraulic brakes.

While this may be so, a hardtail will struggle to keep up with a full-suspension bike most of the time and will need to be a little more careful on the downhill track. The beauty of hardtail bikes is their versatility. The benefit that hardtails give you when jumping them is that you are able to spring up off the jump harder, using the rigidity of the bike to pump off the jump better to give yourself that little bit of extra momentum you need.

The drawback is that they are harder to land and the transition has to be very well timed or you could damage your wheel, your frame, or yourself. There is also less to break on a hardtail than a full-suspension bike, so they make excellent jumpers that can stand up to a lot of punishment well, and if something does go wrong, they are often easier to fix due to the simpler componentry.

The idea is that a hardtail bike is a simpler, more spartan tool. For example, hardtails give much crisper feedback from the trail to the rider, allowing you to feel what the terrain is doing and develop a better understanding of how to respond to the terrain instinctively, based on this sense of feeling and feedback.

Full suspension mountain bikes insulate you from the terrain much more, taking the strain of rough terrain and minimizing it but also preventing you from feeling as much.

Hardtails also force you to use your body to absorb shocks and to use your legs as a sort of improvised suspension in the place of a rear shock, making you stronger and more confident when facing rough terrain. In general, hardtails require you to move around the bike more, finding different positions to stabilize the much more skittish handling of these bikes.

In that sense, there may be something to the idea that hardtails will make you a better rider. However it could also be that skills simply develop over time, and as people ride more they naturally improve. Once they finally transition to full suspension mountain bikes they have already learned so much on their hardtail that a lot of the skills you need to ride a full bouncer are much easier to pick up. Ultimately, getting out and riding will make you a better rider, no matter what bike you decide to use.

TheSwede Free Member. Rear wheel will become a consumable. Ok, i have got Hydrolic Disk brakes so i aint to worried. Great fun though. Ok, i will take that in consideration. Most of all, remember, its just riding bikes down a hill. So, wouldnt my bike be any good tthew? Wookster Full Member. Ok thanks, that was the only thing i was nervous about. Junkyard Free Member.

A skilled rider will get down on any [decent]bike Posted 11 years ago. NickyBisgoingdownhill Free Member. Hi James, Your bike will be fine, but buy a spoke key and check the spokes especially the rear!

If you can buy a bigger back tyre and a super thick tube that helps as you can run them at a lower pressure which will make it faster and more comfortable make sure it leaves some clearance between the tyre and the frame or if you clang it during a run and it buckles it will rub on the frame Top tips, are very similar to riding to riding a full suss but :- 1 Lay off the front brake, especially going into nasty stuff as you wont have as much travel on the front as a dh bike, using some of that up by grabbing the front brake needlessly will slow you down and wear your arms out!

DH hardtails rule!!!!! Love that vid. Real punk attitude riding a HT hard like that. Love the vibe maaaan. Posted 10 years ago.