I just wanted an E version of the Druid with a bit more travel. The numbers that were told to me, were radically different in terms of Reach and Chainstay length than the Druid.
It would not be right to share specifics and also these were possibly prelim numbers, but the Reach on the size L would be similar to a medium in pretty much anything else, with a CS length being the longest I've ever heard of being about the same as the Reach. And I love long CS. Also, I'm going to assume that those CS's grow a lot at sag, which could just be an even longer CS. It's possible the CS numbers they gave me were at sag, which would be huge, but acceptable if that was close to the max.
I also had the XL geo numbers, and that got the Reach close but then the CS were even longer, and dropper insertion would have been wrecked with a pretty long seat tube. Alos the Stack becomes really high. I don't have the same belief as others that stack is the same as Reach because they have this thing called handlebar rise, within reason.
Have to imagine that a bike with geo like this would be extremely fast in the turns, which is great. But a lot of our stuff is janky and weird drops and the like at slow speed, and it seems this might be hard for me to manual (and I suck at it anyways).
Maybe they are right though. I have an XL Relay and as it's set up, I've measured Reach at 497mm (exactly where is should be as a mullet and with the -5mm reach adjust) and I wish it was shorter. My L Smuggler, sometimes I feel incredibly comfortable on that bike and although the spec sheet says 480mm reach, I've measured it 2x at 468mm. Seems impossible that it could be that far off, and I've always liked long bikes but damn I can go fast at times on that Smuggler. So maybe Forbidden is correct on what a L should have for Reach?
If I were to guess, what Forbidden was going after was a real straight up and down riding posture with the high stack and short reach. Which usually is pretty bad for front wheel traction, but long CS can fix that. Just a guess as I have no experience with geo like this.