Bike Geometry - Head Angle and Bottom Bracket Height Explained

How does bike geometry affect how your mountain bike handles?

Head angle is how far your fork slants away ahead of the bike. Downhill bikes have slack head angles for stability at high speeds, while XC bikes are a bit more upright, allowing for better steering agility.

Bottom bracket height is a big consideration in mountain biking. A lower bottom bracket will mean the bike corners better, but the likelihood of striking a pedal on the ground increases. You need to take into the amount of sag on your suspension when taking BB clearance into account.

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[Pienimusta]

3-4 years later, a xc-trail "hybrid" FS with 67 degrees is considered "too steep".

[Onlydansmtb]

welcome to 2020, where Hardtails have 64 degrees head angle

[jasoncross]

The bottom bracket part is a key point, nothing worse than catching you pedal or foot, ruins the ride and the flow. Good point on offset bushes, will be trying that soon and no doubt the iPhone compass app will be really hand to judge. Good vid guys 👊🏼

[dylanwillick]

Please make this into a series encompassing all the different parts of geometry you might find on a spec sheet

[AlanWagoner]

More of these type of geometry videos please. Very informative to a n00b.

[Heretic]

Id be lost without these guys. Thank you for the education!

[szalaydaniel]

What I did to my Canyon Nerve 29: Offset bushings + reset fork travel from factory 110mm to stock 120mm. A bit more agile on the descent, not that much difference on the uphills :)

[peregrina]

Thank you, I have been puzzling over head angle for some time now!

[Jackdg]

What happened to hoe to build and maintain trails? I was thoroughly looking forward to it!

[riggermortisfpv]

Way to break it down simply. Great vid guys, hope you are having a blast in France.

[MartinTeerly]

Height of bottom bracket and length of crank. How to determine a length of crank based on height of bottom bracket to stop smashing your pedals

[StArJoE]

You guys make me so jealous when I see your trails! Love to try them out on my cannondale scalpel!!! Happy trails!
☆joe

[antrace]

so true. I ride a 2008 giant trance advanced, back in those years it was a trail bike, but compared to modern bikes it's a cross-country bike.

[kevinoriol]

Another fantastic, informative video.

[filipcernelic]

please make more if this bike geometry becausd im planing a purchase but i am not shure about all the specs and all the efects of different geometrys so please cover more stuf. this video helped a lot for setting my priorities

[DavidBrownFan]

Hope your all having a nice time over in France 😉

[aiman_rzn]

My hardtail XC bike just have 55mm travel but the head angle is 67°degree and it feel good on fast corner but bad on slow sharp corner

[pibblesnbits]

Quit looking at the numberrs. There are a lot of geometry combinations and the best way to find out what works best it to test ride a bunch of different bikes.

[thgrkness]

You guys should make a video about what to do when injured, because lets be honest it happens to even the best riders

[chrisbartlett]

Really good one cheers Neil, always wondered about the differences but never been bothered enough to investigate! Ha