Definition of Mullet
1: Any of a family of chiefly marine bony fishes with an elongate rather stout body.
2: A hairstyle in which the hair is short on the sides and top and long at the back.
3: A rowdy bike with a large front wheel and a smaller rear wheel for maximum shredability.
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Here we’ll be looking at the latter. More specifically, the Hope HB130 with their new mullet linkage and what effect that has on the bike. The HB130 comes standard as a versatile trail shredding 29er platform (front and rear). Earlier this year Hope Tech released a mullet conversion kit, allowing riders the option to run a 27.5” rear wheel.
The kit comes in three parts, a Fortus 26w 27.5” rear wheel, a Maxxis High Roller 2 2.4” EXO TR Tyre and a new linkage designed to accommodate the smaller wheel. The kit is fairly straight forward to fit and anyone who is comfortable with routine bike maintenance would have no trouble. The new linkage offers around 10mm more rear travel and makes a few changes to the bikes geometry. Most noticeably, the head tube and seat tube angles become a little slacker.
I’m running the bike with the Ohlins fork and coil shock upgrade. With the standard 29er set up I have been riding with the shock in full open mode on the 3 position high speed compression switch. In this setting, with the new linkage and wheel fitted, I found that I was bottoming out more often and sitting lower in my travel. Switching it to the firmer “middle” position and dealing on a touch more low speed compression damping sorted that though.
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I’ve spent just over a month riding and I’m really enjoying the mullet set up on my HB130. When climbing, it hasn’t made an overly dramatic difference to me as I have still been able to clean all the same climbs as before. It’s only when the climbs get longer and a bit more rough that I can notice any differences. In these situations, the 29er set up is definitely more comfortable and more efficient, due to the better rollover and steeper seat angle.
When pointing the bike down my steep local DH tracks it feels snappy through the tight bends and makes dropping it into rutted corners easier and more precise. The bike feels more playful and seems to offer more control when pushing the rear ended into drifts and slides which ups the fun factor on even the more tame trails.
The extra 10mm travel compensates for the smaller wheel, which was getting hung up on the climbs, and makes the bike feel super smooth over fast, loose rocky descents.
This £465 upgrade kit is for riders who really want to maximise the fun potential of their HB130 turning it into a do it all bike, and also for those who enjoy a diverse spread of trails, from XC/long distance to steep natural tech.
I will definitely continue to use the mullet upgrade. I feel that this will be reserved for bike parks, DH tracks and shorter trail rides, saving the 29er setup for long distance rides and fast trail centre blasts.
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Photos: @darkroommediamcr