How to convert your trail bike into a DH friendly sled

It’s a familiar situation. You love ripping it up on trails, and enjoy hammering on your trail bike for hours on end. However, after watching some bike videos, a seed is planted, and the desire to step up your technical game and ride more challenging terrain has formed. Maybe it is time to start hitting that jump or log drop you have gone around the last dozen times you rode your local loop, so you ‘ve begun reading up on the freeriding revolution and how to begin learning new bike skills.

Cole on board a Cove Freeride bike on Circus-mouse in Sandy, Oregon.

If you’re ready to take the next step, make it a lot easier on yourself and do it right. A riding position optimized for climbing doesn’t lend itself for jumping or technical handling. By utilizing the correct equipment and and an optimized set up, you can minimize injury and maximize your learning curve. We originally posted this article over a year ago. In it, we took a Specialized Enduro SL, a bike solidly planted in the all mountain category, and maximized its potential for use in a bike park. Here it is again, with a few additional examples of trail and all mountain bikes, converted ready for some freeride action.

It’s all about the set up

The first and most important step in beginning your freeriding education starts here, with the proper set up of your ride. In an ideal situation, you could go out and purchase a brand new 7 inch travel freeride bike that is designed for this application. Bikes like the Specialized SX trail like your new hero Darren the Claw Berrecloth, or the new Trek Scratch, the bike ridden in videos by super-shredder Cam McCaul. If you have the budget to build up an Intense Slopestyle, or an Uzzi, even better. However, this isn’t an option for you, you can still get in the game by converting your bike into a ride that is ready to handle the learning curve of downhill or freeride mountain biking.

Let’s assume your bike is equipped with a minimum of 5 inches of travel and falls under the all mountain or trail bike category. If it doesn’t, or is a bike you regularly boast about regarding its extremely light weight, turn back now. Cross country specific bikes simply aren’t built for constant abuse, and while these spec changes on your bike will make it much more suitable for ski area/ black diamond trail riding, this style of riding will dramatically reduce the useful life of a XC specific bike. The geometry and construction of this style of frame will limit its potential. If it is what you are stuck with, just know that you’ll want to inspect it even more regularly.  Our goal is to get you up to speed with a minimal amount of downtime, IE, hospital visits.

For this example, we’re going to assume you have a bike comparable to our test sled, a Specialized Enduro Sl. These bikes come stock with 6″ of travel front and rear and is quickly becoming the standard in long travel trail bikes. This is the bike we’ll be setting up today:

Specialized Enduro SL- set up for some serious trail riding

Most all mountain bikes are already set up somewhat downhill friendly. This model has an 8″ rotor in the front for additional stopping power, and a 7″ rotor in the rear. The stem however, is a compromise between downhill and xc with its 80mm length- perfect for all mountain riding, but for DH/FR standards, it is a bit long, and isn’t optimized for technical handling. This bike is equipped with one of the best trail bike upgrades available, a gravity dropper adjustable height seat post. However, for bigger stunts, you will want the capability of slamming the seat down all the way. Looking at the wheels, they are relatively light, and while they have decent air volume, the tires are light weight for its class: Kenda Nevegal 2.35, front and rear. These treads are great for trails and all around, but they are known to pinch flat under aggressive moves.

This bike is already part way there, and would be suitable for most conditions- a great compromise between lightweight and downhill performance. We’re going to take it a step further though, and set it up for black diamond ski-area riding or serious freeride trails; the type of riding you’ll find at resorts like Whistler, Northstar, or Mammoth Mountain. Gravity assisted all the way, where adding weight to a bike like this will actually help build your confidence.

Cockpit/ riding position

Let’s look at the riding position first. If you were to generalize the bar to saddle relationship, you would find that your average XC bike has a bar height that is lower than the saddle. On a typical all mountain/ long travel trail bike, the relative height of the handlebar to the seat tends to be a lot closer on average. However, when you look at a downhill, freeride, or dirt jump bike, you’ll find the bar is considerably higher than the seat height. On most dirt jump bikes the seat is slammed down as low as it can possibly go- this ensures that contact with the saddle will not be a factor, and frees up space for the rider to maneuver.

All mountain and long travel trail bikes are typically sent out with a 70-90mm length stem, (*at 5’10, I ride a medium everything, and will be using a medium frame in our example- smaller or longer bikes will scale accordingly) Again, this is a suitable length for a typical trail setup, but a less than ideal riding position when you are 6 feet above the ground on an elevated ladder. We want to be more upright, in a “ready” position at all times in this situation.

The first thing we’re doing with this bike is putting a 50mm stem on it. If you’re riding jumps and pure technical riding, the focus is on handling. Shortening the stem to a DH/DJ length puts your weight back, and while the top tube of the bike is still longer than a true DH or slope style ride, it will more closely emulate the riding position. We’ve also removed the Specialized suspension and gone with a Fox Talus 36, which is much more dirt jump/ x-up friendly. We’ve removed the all mountain enduro bar which at 26″ wide was a bit narrow, and installed a wider, 28″ uncut Specialized Demo DH handlebar. The additional width of the downhill handlebars will make the bike considerably easier to handle in the loose rocky sections you may encounter on the mountain, and offers additional  leverage needed to control the bike in the gnar.

The next step is to pull off the clip-in pedals and add flat pedals. A lot of trail riders learned to ride with clip-in pedals, but in order to learn proper riding technique and minimize the risk of crashing and injury, flat pedals are necessary. Yes, you will see pro BMX racers and downhill racers racing clipped in, but I guaranty that when they are off the track and riding for fun, the majority of them ride with flats. You will not see any high level riders riding skinnies, or dirt jumping clipped in regularly either. If you don’t take the time to learn the basic skills correctly, you run the risk of hurting yourself and hampering your own personal progression. It can have a steep learning curve, so invest in some sticky rubber soled shoes like the models from 5.10, and you’ll be amazed. The bonus here is that after you’ve gotten dialed on platform pedals, running your clip-ins will feel like you’re cheating.

Halfway there; DH bars, short stem, and platform pedals. Time to add some more durable wheels.

Tire/ Wheel selection

After the pedals, we pulled the wheels and added true downhill wheels and tires. The wider rims and dual ply tires add weight to the bike, causing it to deflect less on rock gardens adding a lot more control and stability. If the concept of hitting jumps is new for you, the additional rotating weight from heavy tires can be amazing- if you are feeling sketching initially, going with heavy weight rubber is worth the time and effort it takes to install the meaty tires. As we were setting this bike up for Northstar at Tahoe, a ski area bikepark known for big rocks and loose dirt, we went with a 2.7 in the front, as because it was the biggest the fork could handle. The bonus here is that big tires, with their additional air volume, almost feel like an inch of travel has been added to the bike. The main thing though, is the feeling of control and the hook up you’ll have in the loose rocky stuff. When you’re learning your way through a jump line like Live wire, or A-Line, having heavier, slower rotating tires and the stability in the air- sometimes it even feels like I’m riding in slow motion. (Brrrrrraaaaaaap)

Our last step was to remove the Gravity Dropper seat post and lightweight saddle. In its place we installed a SDG iBeam post and dirt jump saddle. The iBeam system is killer because it takes the broken seat rail out of the equation; it’s light, durable, and easy to set up. The main thing though is that we can now slam the seat down all the way- you’re riding downhill, and the time spent in the saddle, if you are riding with proper technique, will be considerably less. The lower your seat height is while jumping or approaching drops, the better.

We would also recommend some form of chain guide as well. If you have a limited budget, swapping the big ring with a bash guard is a good start. Running a dual ring or single ring guide is even better.

Our Enduro SL- now ready for slope style/ DH action. All it needs is a chain guide.

Another example: Fisher Roscoe

Here is another example of a bike we optimized for DH or more aggressive riding. With this case, we wanted to retain the all mountain and trail riding capability, (and relatively light weight) while making it handle more like a freeride bike.

The Fisher Roscoe One in it's stock configuration, out of the box.

Here is our trail bike- a Fisher Roscoe One, fresh off the show room floor. In stock form, it comes configured with clip in pedals, and a longer stem. In this case, we did the bare minimum in modifications to get it ready for freeride use. The bars, stem, and pedals were changed out. Keeping the stock tires and wheels ended up leaving us with a bike that felt suitable for gated gravity racing. With a chain guide, it would have worked well for racing dual slalom, or even some mountain cross courses.

Fisher Roscoe with short stem and platform pedals

The stock wheels and tires made for a light weight set up; (light is always a relative term of course) however, on rocky aggressive terrain, like the National Trail at South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona, we ended up flatting quite a bit.

A few mods later, and we're putting it through its paces. (Boulder, Co)

Trek Remedy conversion

Trek Remedy in stock form

Here’s one more. Here is our stock Trek Remedy. Off the floor, an extremely light for its class machine, and a chassis with a lot of versatility. Not a lot of bikes can shred an all mountain epic, and then do the same for shuttle runs the next day. In this case we pulled the stock wheels, bar, stem, cranks, and pedals off, and exchanged them for more durable models, better suited for our applications.

Trek Remedy ready for more aggressive riding

Adding dual ply tires, heavy duty Saint cranks, E.13 dual ring chain guide, 50mm stem, 28″ DH handlebars and platform pedals, has transformed this bike into a freeride capable ride.

Putting the Trek Remedy in Freeride use at the Marmot Trails in Sandy, OR

Related posts:

1. Not as bike friendly? Portland declared 2nd most bike friendly city
2. All Mountain or Long Travel Trail, Part II: the lines are blurring
3. All Mountain or Long Travel Trail?
4. Support the new bike fund- buy our stuff
5. Long term thrash test: Trek Remedy

Tagged as: all mountain, circus mouse, cole, dh conversion, Fisher, freeride, remedy, Roscoe, sandy, specialized enduro sl, trail bike to dh, Trek