tomascosauce

I bought a small Salsa Timberjack last year and all my riding ends up with sore quads and sometimes knee pain. I've noticed that I sit up more up-right than on my other bikes that don't have this sort of pain.

Should I try a larger frame to get my upper body more horizontal and engage my glutes more?

dcwldct

Is your COG positioned properly relative to the BB? If you can get that right and your saddle height right, look at adjusting the reach before going out and buying a completely new frame. What current stem length are you using? If you can increase reach that way you'll end up spending a lot less.

Clem von Jones

Try lower slammed -17 degree or even -20 or-25 degree stems first. Stems are cheap on ebay and you can buy a bunch and experiment. Larger frames with higher head tubes might even prevent you from achieving a more horizontal position. Sometimes I become obsessed with the idea my bike is too small or too large and I can't even make up my mind which of the two applies to one specific bike. It can become an obsessive-compulsive disorder. What I hate about mtbs with front suspension is having the front so high that it forces you into an upright riding position so I like to use a negative-rise stem on suspension forks with short-reach drop bars. Yes I love roadie drop bars on mtbs. You can also flip straight handlebars upside-down if they have some rise to lower them, or use flat handlers with less backwards sweep and narrower width to increase reach. The main problem with front suspensions is getting the bars low enough to get better weight distribution between the wheels. Climbing steep hills with all your weight on the rear wheel while the front wheel wants to lift off the ground and wander around is hell. You might have to lower the bars several inches to prevent that. Experiment with it. Use a stem calculator like this to figure out what is needed to get the bars in a lower position https://www.yojimg.net/bike/web_tools/stem.php

Consider stems like this:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...KEN+TK9320+MTX

COBikeLover

Are you aware of any good tutorials about stem knowledge so to speak? I might be having the same problems as OP and I would like to understand more about stems in general for fitting for comfort in general.

thanks