Hard Tail or full suspension?

[TrailDog1]

Hi. This year will be my first year doing any sort of 24 hour race. I am wondering which bike I should bring. I have a specialized stumpjumper FSR, that is a full suspension XC bike,,(not a beefy downhill bomber). My older bike is a generic run of the mill hard tail that is still a pretty good bike. So depending on how technical the trail is, I am wondeirng which bike would be best,,if the trail is pretty smooth (not a lot of roots, rocks, ruts and other extreme features) the fsr might be over kill..thoughts?
part "b" of this question is about tires. weather/rain will play a part in tire selection, but assuming optimal (dry) conditions, do you still need an aggressive knobby or is a lower rolling resitance tread better (suitable)?

[sven]

TrailDog,

Run whatever you've most comfortable on. I've raced the last few years on a fully rigid single speed, but I've also raced it on full suspension as well as hard tail bikes (I guess that happens when you've done the race for the past 13 years). I will say that each bike will be better for certain parts of the course- and the course is pretty balanced. There is a good amount of climbing- which the hardtail would be nice for, but there are also sections descending where the full squish is nice. Here is a link to a course profile we did a couple of years ago- there are slight tweaks to the course since then- but it gives you an idea of the climbing: http://teamweakandfeeble.blogspot.com/2007/06/test-ride-results.html

Regarding tires- depends on the weather leading up to and through that weekend. There have been dry years and there have been WET years. One year it rained the entire weekend- it as crazy. It also depends on your comfort on roots with a "faster" tire.

If possible my suggestion would be to head up to Great Glen at some point this summer and ride parts of the course (or all of it)- it'll give you a much better idea of what to run.

Good luck and we'll see you at the race!