I have been wondering for a while now why it seems hardtails are so unpopular in SA. I mean you hardly see a hard tail anywhere outside of a high school bike shed these days. Seemingly a full sus trail bike has become the entry point to being able to ride even a mild Jeep track. Now sure, I’m exaggerating a bit above, but it would seem locally that hardtails are not really selling anymore. I was in the specialized shop in Stellenbosch over the weekend to see some of the new bikes, and I was surprised not to see any decent hardtails. They only had the really entry level rock hopper hardtails. When I asked a young sales guy if they didn’t have any more serious hardtails in stock, he sheepishly showed me a top of the line S-Works Epic, that was retailing at R140k. Nothing else. When I asked him where all the bikes in between are, he said they don’t carry hardtails anymore, because no one buys them. This is in stark contrast to what we see in the overseas forums, and especially on channels like GMBN, where they seem to absolutely love hardtails, especially for longer rides across the countryside, or just some fun on a trail park. Now I know full sus is awesome, especially on multi day stage races, and especially with lots of long corrugated gravel or very bumpy track....... but for blasting on some flows single track, nothing on earth beats a hardtail. The XCO guys on the international scene also seem to chop and change between there full sus and hardtails depending on the terrain. So why on earth are hardtails basically dead here. Specially in a place like Stellenbosch, that is blessed with loads of amazing trail riding? If I was on a tight budget, I would far rather buy the best hardtails I could, rather than an entry level full sus. I mean bikes of R25 to 30k are being sold with sun tour and x-fusion suspensions, and SLX if you lucky. In these price range I much rather buy something with a REBA fork and full XT groupset....... If I was told I had to choose one bike now, and I could never have another, it would definately be something with pretty slack geometry, 130 mil travel up front, and nice wide 27,5 tires, and a hardtails. I do how ever hope the day never comes where one needs to be married to one type of bike for life......
