If you can find a Surly Troll to test ride, do so. I'm riding a bike that isn't too far off from a Hunqapillar (except it maxes out at 40'ish mm tires) and there's no way I would be comfortable riding it as a "mountain bike". I have now test ridden a Surly Karate Monkey and a Troll (both dedicated MTB geometry) and those bikes inspire the confidence to do things I wouldn't even think about attempting on my bike or something like the Hunq.
I've found that I'm much more comfortable riding a bike with a trail measurement in the 70+ mm range. I've ridden my current bike (trail 61mm) and an old hybrid (trail 74mm) on dirt with the same set of tires and wheels and the old hybrid felt sure-footed and stable while the current bike was twitchy and bounced all over the place. A lot of that is my inexperience but I'm not convinced that even increasing skills would change my mind. If you haven't checked out a Troll, I highly encourage you to do so. It might be the perfect MTB for you. On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:48:15 AM UTC-6, David Stein wrote: > > New to the group. Have a Hunq on order. I've seen a number of threads > dancing around this topic (including the recent 'Hunqapillar as a true > mountain bike' thread). Wanted to ask the question a different way, how > many mountain bikes do you own, what are they, and when do you decide to > take which bike out? > > I just got into mountain biking/trail riding after years of road riding > (Bay Area, mostly fire roads for now, some single track). I suck at it. > Trying to get better. Salsa El Mariachi with front suspension. > My interest is in exploring mostly, not necessarily going fast or racing, > but that being said I haven't met a downhill that hasn't resulted in a > crash or three (including the demo ride in Shell Ridge I took the Hunq on). > When I ordered the Hunq the idea was to use it as an all-rounder (mix of > fire roads, light trails, city riding, commuting) and my Salsa El Mariachi > 29er to take on more technical terrain and single track. But after another > couple more harrowing rides, I decided the Salsa wasn't for me and sold it > (I think it was the 29er wheel size that I didn't like, I am short and it > wasn't nimble enough, though maybe it was the general geometry of the > frame). So now, I'm left with the choice of running the Hunq as my only > mountain bike with two sets of wheels (2.1 smart sams on one and 1.75 green > guards on another), or using the Salsa money to buy an additional > singletrack specific bike with front suspension (and using in conjunction > with the Hunq, the ole N+1). Curious to what other people are doing. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
