Lena’s Titanium Hardtail

Shorter riders often get overlooked when it comes to sizing from the big brands. It’s not impossible to fit folks under 5’8”-ish onto 29ers, it does take a little extra attention to detail.

Lena had a full suspension that was fast but too aggressive and a fat bike that was comfortable but handled like a barge. My brief for this build was a hardtail that took aspects from both but lived in that liminal (wink-wink) space between the two.

I kept the rear end of the frame compact, with a 435mm chainstay length to provide heel clearance for cargo on the matching titanium rack but not much else. This shortened the wheelbase and the rear center, making the bike more maneuverable around turns and responsive when out of the saddle, which is important on a singlespeed mountain bike.

The front triangle uses tubing diameters appropriate for a smaller rider, another area where the big brands often miss the mark. Instead of just slackening the head angle to avoid toe overlap and compromising the front end geometry we opted for 150mm cranks to provide a little more breathing room.

A straight seat tube with externally threaded bottle attachment points as opposed to internally threaded allows for up to a 175mm dropper post and two water bottles, a rarity on a small frame.

Thanks to the modular UDH dropouts this frame can be run as singlespeed with the eccentric inserts as shown, or with a standard derailleur via UDH or with the latest SRAM Transmission drivetrain.