What trail frame?

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Must be:

Full sus
Lightish
Not single pivot
Not 3k for a frame
Take 140-160 forks
Poppy front
29er

I sold my Santa Cruz 5010 frame as the headtube length on the XL was ridiculously tall/long.

What can I replace it with?

[Pablo16v]

Bird Aether 9 or AM9. Built for fun, not expensive and they use horst link suspension. I've had my AM9 for 4 years and I'm struggling to think of any current similar spec frame that I would replace it with.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

I've just priced up a aluminium Bird. 1700 for a frame?!!

Edit. A Privateer 141 looks good but a tad heavy.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz on Wednesday 2nd March 15:27

[snotrag]

Privateer 141 is great but the complete opposite of 'lightish and poppy', I tried one.

Been through the similar process and requirements, replacing a current gen Santa Cruz Hightower.

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Full sus
Lightish
Not single pivot
Not 3k for a frame
Take 140-160 forks
Poppy front
29er

My bold - why? (Theres a bigger difference between a 'good frame' with a linkage style and a bad frame with a linkage, than there neccesarily is between a good linkage bike and a good single pivot bike).

I ended up with an Orange Stage Evo, 140/120 so less travel but better - 2022 Fox factory both ends and lots of time dialling therm in.

I seriously considered the Aether 9 too, similar pricing.

Propain Hugene is another i looked at, you might be interested in, but expensive and tricky to get hold of.

Edited by snotrag on Wednesday 2nd March 15:45

[Pablo16v]

I was going to ask a similar question about SP frames as I was going to suggest the Cotic Jeht, which is linkage driven. The frame price is creeping up (£1800) but it looks like a great fun bike and Cotics are generally very well regarded.

[missing the VR6]

I guess price is all personal, but the new Scor bike would be where I was looking, looks amazing and the PB review was pretty good.