Is progressive geometry better? Well, yes and no. Ultimately, it depends on a rider’s perspective and point of comparison.

Mid-to-high-end bikes released nowadays are certainly faster and arguably offer an improved rider experience compared to bikes of 10 years ago, thanks to the trend for longer, lower and slacker geometry.

Are they more fun? Well, that’s debatable, because some of my fondest riding memories stretch back 20 years.

Would entry-level bikes provide a better riding experience if they shared the same geometry as more progressive high-end bikes? I reckon so. Today’s trail bikes offer more stability, better handling and greater control than the old-school geometry that cheaper models still sport.

Geometry should be on-par for bikes across the entire price spectrum to give all riders the best experience.

There is, however, a limit to all of this. Would today’s mainstream trail or enduro bikes be even better if the geometry continued on the trajectory of the past decade and became even longer, lower and slacker? It’s a no for me.

Low is a trend I can get behind because it improves both fore/aft stability and lateral agility. The best of both worlds. Riders spending time learning pedal placement in tech terrain is a worthy sacrifice for me. And a bash guard doesn’t add much weight.

However, while as a short-arse at 173cm (5ft 8in) I understand my perspective on long and slack might be somewhat biased, it does make it easier for me to find bikes I think are ‘too long’.

For reference, my preferred geometry numbers are around 460mm for reach, 440mm chainstays, a 64-degree head angle and 340mm-ish bottom bracket height. Give or take a little each way. With those numbers in mind, a 190cm (6ft 2in) rider would be on a 505mm equivalent reach.

Extending the reach, and combining that with a super-slack head angle, throws the front wheel way out in front of you. Even with extended chainstays, long bikes tend to have a more rearward weight balance.

This means you have to actively shift your weight forwards when riding to get the front wheel to behave as it should.

Not only does this mean supporting more weight with your upper body, which makes riding more fatiguing, it also takes a healthy dose of commitment and technique to do it well, something novice riders may naturally lack.

Without really getting your weight committed to the front wheel, understeer is easy, causing you to brake mid-turn and only adding to trail woes. Without an aggressive posture and good technique, very long bikes can, in my experience, cause more harm than their stability does good.

That’s not to say I think bikes should go backwards – geometry these days has found a pretty good middle ground that does most things very well nearly all the time.

But ask me this question again in another 10 years and you might get a very different answer.

Rob Weaver – technical editor-in-chief

Extreme bikes have pushed the mainstream in the right direction

While this is a very complex question that’s difficult to wrap up into a one-size-fits-all answer, longer, lower and slacker bikes are, for the most part, better, even for a stumpy little fella like me.

What’s more, if you were to travel back 10 years and ask me the same question, I’d have screamed “Yes” at the top of my lungs when answering.

Why? Well, despite an abundance of long-travel trail bikes (which soon got re-badged as enduro bikes), the geometry was, in most cases, really quite conservative. I mean, back then, we were riding down insanely fast Alpine descents on bikes with numbers closer to modern day cross-country bikes and bottom brackets so far off the floor you could drive a car underneath them.

Jump back on a bike from a decade ago and, while it’ll work just fine and still go fast, I’ll bet you won’t feel as brave when the speed picks up or the gradient steepens.

Thankfully, bike geometry really started to change (a lot) for the better not long after this and the boundaries of what was possible soon began to shift.

With the likes of Chris Porter and his Nicolai-made Geometron frames, the industry started to really take notice of how a trail bike could benefit from geometry figures closer to that of a downhill bike.

Admittedly, those super-slack and long bikes didn’t always excel on every trail. Get one pointed down something steep and confidence levels would skyrocket, while on the flip side, when the terrain was a little less extreme, such stretched-out machines could dull proceedings a little and weren’t always as playful.

But crucially, what those extreme bikes did was help to start a revolution. Soon enough the bigger, mainstream brands took notice and started experimenting with their own side projects.

Before we knew it, average reach numbers for a medium shot from 425mm to 450 or 460mm, head angles were raked out to within one degree of most downhill rigs (most enduro bikes now sport a head angle in the region of 63.5 to 64 degrees).

In a bid to allow us to corner with more confidence, bottom brackets have also got lower (though are creeping up again with suspension travel on the increase for these types of bikes).

All things considered, I very much like where the envelope-pushing trailblazers have taken modern-day mainstream geometry. What was once ridiculously long and slack is now more or less the norm.

Why wouldn’t you want to feel safer, more confident and faster on your bike? I know I do.

Tom Marvin – technical editor

We’re in the sweet spot

Andy Lloyd / Our Media

Without wanting to repeat Rob’s feelings on the matter, I have to agree broadly.

Times have changed and bikes have now, in my opinion, reached a real sweet spot.

I remember riding a Geometron for the first time. It was a dank, grey, wet day in South Wales, and Chris Porter took me to a hillside I’d never ridden before. Now, South Wales’ hillsides are notoriously steep and Chris being Chris, this was one steep hill.

The bike was longer than anything I’d ever ridden – by a huge margin – and it’s safe to say I’ve never ridden such steep tracks, blind, so well.

From this experience, one might expect me to be on Alex’s side of the argument – bikes should be really long and low and slack – after all, the Geometron utterly flattered my riding that day.

But I’m not.

Those bikes have their place and there’s no doubt they’ve pushed other bigger brands to step up their game. Your ‘average’ trail or enduro bike in 2022 has grown to meet the likes of the Geometron in the middle, and they’re all the better for it.

But such long bikes are specialist machines that require the rider to completely redress their riding techniques and skills. And, I’d argue, unless you’re riding those super-steep, technical tracks day in, day out, you’re not going to be getting the best out of your riding the rest of the time.

Pop me on an ‘average’ bike now, and it’ll still be able to get me to the bottom of the hill 99 per cent as well as those descending monsters created by Geometron. But take them to a blue-graded trail centre, and I’ll easily be able to pop the front wheel up, scurry it round a corner and attempt my best at a cheeky Scandi flick.

Yes, it’s possible to do all those things on a super-long bike. But I’d put money on you finding it easier to do them on a ‘normal’ bike than on one with a wheelbase that stretches into next week.

So, there we go. Super-long and slack bikes are ace. Point them down a steep hill and, without doubt, you’ll get down faster and safer. But, more importantly, they’ve also pushed other, more conventional, manufacturers to build better bikes – without following the trend all the way to its limits. For the vast majority of riders, that’s what really matters.

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