The Super Unit began its life as a rigid homage to the Stooge MK4 but without the price of a custom frame. Most of the parts I used were things I owned already or ones that I was lucky enough to get my hands on during the 2020/21 winter months, thus many of the parts choices were “happy accidents”. 

The key to the whole bike is the Works Components 2 degree angleset, which decreases the headtube angle by 2 degrees, 68* to 66*, and lowers the bottom bracket a good bit. I tried riding it rigid on a few rides, but after an arm pumped descent on some proper trails I gave up on rigid (too old!) and ordered Marzocchi Z-2 fork from the parking lot. 

Once the fork arrived and I got it on the frame I was worried I had created a geometry nightmare with the head angle around 64* and the bars at least an inch above the saddle with the post up. My first ride confirmed some of my fears, the bike went downhill fine once up to speed, but slow speed moves and climbing were encumbered by the floppy front end.  I tried lower rise bars and slammed the stem to get more weight on the front, but it still wanted to wheelie on every climb.

My last resort was to slide the chainstays back, and this was a move that violated everything I thought I knew about mountain bikes. “You always want as short of chainstays as possible!” was the mantra I had accepted, but I was out of options. I begrudgingly slid them back to the full 445mm of chainstay and put the tall bars back on just for fun. What a difference! Climbing was miles better with the wheel way out back and the tall bars giving a super upright position and somehow the long stays tamed the wheel flop. 

The cornering was the thing that really blew me away, with the long wheel base 1195mm and a 63%/37% front/rear center ratio this bike has tons of grip, it really rails when leaned over and the dead steering gives almost too much confidence when pinned. This thing was so much fun that I did not ride a full suspension bike for 10 months after I got it put together and was constantly blabbering about how great it was to anyone unfortunate enough to stop and listen.

It was also cool to see how much rear center (chainstay length) and a tall stack and tall bars change how a bike rides, as well as nerding out on all the numbers. Thanks for listening and stop by the shop and see if we can build up a Super Unit for you.