What Makes a Hardtail Hardcore? A Look at Suspension and Geometry

Mountain bike categories, by and large, tend to get messy. The lines between XC and trail, and trail and enduro bikes, are blurry at best, and continue to ebb and flow from season to season.

The line between hardtails and full suspension mountain bikes, by contrast, is as bright as red race course tape. This got me wondering: How does current hardtail geometry compare to full suspension geometry, and where do hardcore hardtails fit along the riding spectrum? It was time to run some numbers.

Hardtail suspension travel

With few exceptions, hardtails are no longer favored for mountain bike racing outside of the cross-country discipline. For that reason, it makes sense to split hardtails into two major categories: XC (race) and hardcore. The hardcore label became popular several years ago as a catch-all for bikes that are technically capable and are designed for fun, all-conditions riding rather than pure efficiency. If this sounds like the definition of a trail bike and trail riding in general — essentially the only mountain bike discipline that doesn’t involve racing — you’re not far off.

Back in 2016 Singletracks published a list our favorite hardcore hardtails, and we set a hard cutoff at 120mm of front suspension travel, and up. At the time, XC bikes were generally running ±100mm of front suspension travel, though times have certainly changed. Today it’s not unusual to see XC race bikes with 120mm of suspension up front, and it seems 140mm is now the more popular spec for aggressive, trail-oriented hardtails. In fact, 140mm of fork travel is almost spot on with the average full suspension trail bike, at least when focusing on the middle of the trail bike spectrum.

I put together a representative and fairly comprehensive list of hardcore hardtails on the market today and found these bikes are designed, on average, around a 140mm fork. There are certainly outliers on the list; the Chromag Rootdown and Nordest Bardino are both capable of running up to 170mm of travel; the standard Kona Honzo, one of the bikes that has defined the hardcore hardtail category over the years, comes with a 120mm fork. Not only is the average (mean) around 140mm of suspension travel, it also seems to be the most common (mode) among the bikes selected.

BRAND	MODEL	YEAR	WHEEL SIZE	TRAVEL	HTA	STA	REACH	ETT	CHAINSTAY	BB HEIGHT	WHEELBASE	STACK	BB DROP
Canyon	Stoic	2022	29	140	65	75	480	650	428	310	1222	635	60
Chromag	Rootdown	2021	29	150-170	64	76	487	648	420	320	1251	648	50.8
Commencal	Meta HT AM	2021	29	150	65	74	445	628	432	330	1205	639	40
Cotic	BFeMAX		29	140	65	74.5	485	660.1	444	310	1242.2	631.5	60
Cotic	SolarisMAX		29	140	65	74	476	665	444	314.5	1234	626.4	55.5
Devinci	Kobain	2021	29	130	65.5	75	470	641	435	319	1220	638	51
Diamondback	Sync’R	2022	29	140	66	74	455	630	435	321	1185	610	50
Giant	Fathom	2021	29	130	66	75	470	639	435	310	1203	631	60
Guerrilla Gravity	Pedalhead	2022	29	140	65	74	460	636	435	325	1218	634	45
Kona	Honzo	2022	29	120	66.5	74	480	637	420	315	1200	655	60
Kona	Honzo DL	2022	29	140	68	75	475	647	415	310	1173	642	65
Kona	Honzo ESD	2022	29	150	63	77.5	490	633	417	312.5	1245	643	62.5
Marin	El Roy	2022	29	140	63	78	510	647	435	318	1282	645	65
Marin	San Quentin		27.5	130	65	75	464	624.7	425	310	1193.1	599.7	50
Merida	Big.Trail		29	140	65.5	75.5	455	622	435	303.5	1196	650	66.5
Norco	Torrent	2021	29	150	64	76	480	641	425	333	1243	646	45
Nordest	Bardino		29	140-170	64.5	75	485	664	425	315	1244	645	55
On One	Big Dog		29	130	65	75	460	630	444	312	1223	628	58
On One	Dave		29	150	62	77	480	625	458	320	1296	640	50
Orange	Clockwork EVO	2021	27.5	140	65	74	471	650	425	296	1206	621	58
Orange	Crush MX	2021	Mixed	140	64.5	75.5	480	652	430	306	1245	665	58
Orange	P7	2021	29	140	65	74	460	649	445	302	1230	655	68
Patrol	CO9	2021	29	130	67	74	475	655	430	307.5	1199	635	62.5
Pipedream	Moxie MX3	2021	29	140-170	64	77.5	510	650	425-441		1264-1280	642	64
Ragley	Big AL	2021	29	140	65	74	460	645	435	305	1217	460	65
Ragley	Marley	2021	27.5	130	65.5	73	455	644.4	425	309	1185.5	619.4	45
Rocky Mountain	Growler		29	140	64	75	475	647	435	315	1239	643	55
Thomson	Hooch	2021	27.5	140	66.5	73.5	455	640	430	301	1186	626	53
Trek	Roscoe	2022	29	140	65	74.7	470	646	430	321.5	1215	644	61
AVERAGE				138.3	64.9	75.1	474.2	643.7	431.6	311.8	1222.9	631.6	57.2

Hardcore geo

For me, geometry is where things get interesting. It turns out modern, full suspension trail bikes and hardcore hardtails are fairly similar along a number of dimensions including important ones like reach, chainstay length, and even seat tube angles. Again, there are outliers like the Marin El Roy with its 78° seat tube angle and 510mm reach at the upper end, and the Ragley Marley with its 73° seat tube angle and Commencal Meta HT AM with its 445mm reach at the other end.

For some of the other geo measurements, the gap between full suspension and hardtail trail bikes is a bit wider, as you can see in the table below.

	HTA	STA	REACH	ETT	CHAINSTAY	BB HEIGHT	WHEELBASE	STACK
Hardcore hardtail	64.9°	75.1°	474.2	643.7	431.6	311.8	1222.9	631.6
FS Trail Bike	66.0°	75.7°	469.6	627.8	436.7	337.9	1215.8	620.8
Difference	-1.1°	-0.6°	+4.6mm	+15.9mm	-5.1mm	-26.1mm	+7.1mm	+10.8mm

Head tube angle (HTA)

In our test sample of FS bikes taken earlier this year, the average head tube angle was 66°; for hardtails, the average is more than a degree slacker at 64.9°. One explanation could be that sag affects FS and hardtail geo differently and that when both are weighted, their HTAs end up being pretty similar. More explicitly, a sagged (compressed) hardtail fork yields a steeper real world head tube angle, by nearly 1.5° for a typical hardtail running 25% sag, according to this geo calculator. On a full suspension bike, things are more complicated, but in general sag in the rear shifts both head and seat tube angles slacker, while fork sag makes both angles steeper, tempering the overall sag effect on geometry more so than on a hardtail. Note too that hardtail trail bike STAs are slacker by more than half a degree than FS bikes on average, but once sagged, they get 1.5° steeper which likely more than compensates for the difference.

Even among this crop of hardcore hardtails, there’s a wide range of HTAs, with the Thomson Hooch sporting the steepest at 66.5°, and the On One Dave laying back the slackest at a DH-worthy 62°. For hardcore hardtails, it seems a 65° head tube angle is middle of the road and is generally a safe bet.

Bottom bracket (BB) height

Bottom bracket height is an important part of the long, low, slack equation and at first glance, it might be surprising to see much lower BB heights on hardcore hardtails compared to full suspension bikes. If a bottom bracket height is too low, pedal strikes become an issue, but not to worry: Since hardtails BBs don’t sag down as much as their FS trail siblings, a lower height makes perfect sense. How much lower? On average, the hardtails I looked at had bottom brackets 26.1mm lower than FS trail bikes. That’s a lot!

Among those listed above, the 27.5-wheeled Orange Clockwork EVO has the lowest bottom bracket height at 296mm. The Norco Torrent, a 29er, has the highest bottom bracket at 333mm, which is still lower than the average (un-sagged) FS trail bike.

Effective top tube (ETT)

As far as cockpit fit measurements go, ETT is secondary to reach for many riders. Looking at hardcore hardtail vs. full suspension trail bike geo, the reaches are fairly similar (within 5mm) but the ETTs are not. On average trail hardtail ETTs are about 16mm longer than full suspension trail bikes. So given similar reaches, why are the ETT lengths so much longer on hardcore hardtails?

A partial explanation is that while the HTAs on hardcore hardtails are slacker, which effectively shortens the ETT, the slacker STA lengthens the ETT by a larger degree.

Diving deeper, keeping reach constant, a longer ETT also means that the horizontal position of the bottom bracket between the seat and head tube is shifted forward. This affects how weight is distributed between the front and rear wheels which plays into everything from traction to control. Here again, full suspension sag affects the position of the bottom bracket, which in turn affects how the bike is weighted. The simple answer is, a longer ETT on a hardtail can provide a similar ride feel and handling compared to a full suspension trail bike. Or, it could be the other way around, depending on how you look at it.

Conclusion

While researching this list of hardcore hardtails I was surprised to find some of the larger bike brands like Santa Cruz and Specialized don’t offer them. While the brands do offer XC-race and entry-level hardtails, they’re missing more capable (and reasonably priced) all-rounders.

Along many key dimensions, hardcore hardtails actually appear to be more hardcore and progressive than their FS counterparts. Looking closely, however, it’s clear modern trail hardtails and FS bikes are actually very similar, which makes it easy for riders to transition between the two. Both provide a fun, capable platform for tackling a wide variety of terrain, albeit at slightly different speeds — and price points.