Bike geometry 101 - HOW TO TRANSFORM YOUR RIDE

Following on from part one, where we showed how your bike’s geometry influences your body position and centre of gravity, we now look at how you can manipulate components and settings to improve your shape on the bike

- Alan Muldoon

My journey into understanding and adjusting bike geometry began in earnest over two decades ago. At that time, I was trying to adapt a full-suspension trail bike into a downhill race machine. The goal was simple: make the bike slacker and lower, and at the same time add some much-needed progression to the coil-sprung suspension.

The first step was to make a scaled drawing of the frame, suspension linkage and the bike’s geometry. I then calculated where the shock needed to be mounted in order to achieve the numbers I so desperately desired. Just as I was about to drill a hole in the frame and reposition the shock, it dawned on me that if my calculations were out, the only thing I would achieve would be to seriously devalue my bike.

So instead of drilling the frame, I sold it and bought an Intense M1 SL – a frame with more holes in than I knew what to do with. Pretty much everything on that Intense was adjustable, much in the same way as brands employ test mules today to trial different geometry concepts without having to build unique prototypes for each new idea.

And while that old Intense taught me a lot about bike geometry, suspension and how adjusting both can impact ride quality, it was really just the beginning of a journey that I’m still on today. Now though, the tools at our disposal for tweaking geometry are much more sophisticated, so there’s really no need to break out the Black & Decker if you want to slacken your head angle or lower your BB height. My thinking on bike geometry has evolved too, so if you missed the Geometry 101 feature in the July issue, I would recommended reading it first as it will help you understand why you might want to change your bike’s geometry before we get to the how part.