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After looking into the subject and umming and aarring about it I finally bought one. The biggest problem was i could not decide by how much to go by (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 degrees). I mean, 1 degree sounded good but remembering its a hardtail and the head angle will always get steeper as it pivot around the rear wheel. But would 2 degrees make it too slack and hard to climb. O well one way to find out and go ball deep with 2 degrees.





I'ma big fan of long, low and slack and at the time of buying my trek stache there was nothing in the 29er hardtail market (seeing as they were for xc racing and nothing else) that really fitted the bill. The stache was the only bike that i could find that was slacker than 70 degrees but it was still only 68.3 degrees. Once bought it went through a constance change of components turning it from a xc bike into trail bike good enough for trips to Wales (tested at Penchma, marin and Brechfa by no means). With a few of these changes they did change the head angle to 68.0 degrees (130mm fork instead of 120mm (but seeing as i went from rock shock to fox and fox have a shorter crown to axal messament i don't think this has had an effect) and hans damp front and nobby nick rear tyre which i think they have had a big effect). The frame was becoming the limited factor especial with the head angle, que the A team music and the headset being fitted...





So first ride out the way, nothing particularly taxing with an urban loop with a few trail features chucked in for good measure. Defiantly feels different and more stable which to me makes it more chuck-able because of the extra confidence it gives. Only draw back that i can see so far so is that the top bearing does not sit inside the frame (this is so the bearing can be moved back to allow for the angle difference) so it raises the stem and bars up a lot more than pushing the front wheel further out lowers the head tube. This many mean a change in stem and bars to get it back to where it felt before hand.





As for the critical final measurement of angle i have ended up with a head angle of the fork at 65 degrees (3degrees different) which i can only presume it is because it is on a 29er and not a 26/27.5 (look up a bit of trigonometry to know what i mean, finally a maths lesions came in handy). Once i get a change i will try to take a few more measurements of the frame (bb height, wheel base ect)

I'll be interested in the long-term on this matt. Who did you purchase it through?

Pedal-worx racing

Straight from works website, you will have to have a try next time we are out

Coolio, apparently the free headset that's coming with the frame is as good as how much I paid for it plus the frame is steep at 68 degrees

Pedal-worx racing

I know this might sound like a stupid question, but how do you measure your head angle...??

Can you just rest a digital spirit level on your forks to get angle reading..

Yer, I used an app on the phone to measure my head angle on the fork lower stantons, if you look at the head angle of the head tube between the two bike pics, it will be a slight difference where having the fork stretched out it will lower head tube and bottom bracket.

There is never a silly question, just silly answers

Nice write up.. its looks great in its slack setting.

On a related note ive had good success with an offset bushing recently as when combined with taller forks its taken my Capra from 65.7 to low 64's - slackmonstertrucking

It's a bit hard to fit a offset bush to a hardtail I am temped to fit another angle headset to the spitfire rather than a offset bush because the frame already has an angle adjusting chip system and the bb is already low enough in the slackest setting, the bush would make it too low while the headset would do more of the fork angle.

How do you find 64 degree on the capra? any negitives?

I made the change as I was riding pure DH for 4 days on the Capra.so it worked well.

Natively I run the front end @ 160mm I’ve got the new 36's which can also be run at 180 so i did that. Each 10mm added to the fork slackened the bike by 1/2 deg and raised the bb by a couple of mm. Fitting one offset bush slackened it by another 1/2 deg and dropped the bb back down 5mm. (all figures approx of course)

The net change was about 1.5deg slacker but the BB in the same position. Wheelbase was a smigin longer and reach a bit shorter.

I think the offset bushing slightly changes the shape of the leverage ratio too. The Capra is natively progressive. Starting it 5mm further into its swingarm stroke makes it even more progressive - which worked well for the terrain I was riding.

In its current set up it would be a bit of a handful on anything but fire road climbs tbh... but it makes it a great winch and plummet bike and allowed me to hang with the DH bikes when i was riding well. As the BB was near where it started I didn't get any pedal strikes. I won’t be keeping it like this forever. Ill drop the front end back to 160 and take out the offset bush for trail riding duties.