Suspension or not????

[Pikey]

I've been gradually upgrading my cannondale mtb over the last few months and have got to the point of wondering about the forks.

Took her in for a service and the bloke said, really nice bike, but no offence you need to sort the forks (think he meant in an upgrade way)...

After this piece of un sublte salesmanship he proceeded to show me how much the front end flexs when the bars are turned and the wheel held.

I had noticed some understeer - would this cause it?

TBH most of my riding at the moment is on road / towpath and at the most gnarly probably the range track on the salisbury plain firing ranges. Most of the time i have the forks locked out anyway.

My question is - should i get some rigid ally ones, and save the weight or really upgrade and get some rock shox reba or the like? (the latter is what the LBS guy reccomended)?

 

[Pikey]

PS I've been toying with some of those Mosso blade type ones off eBay, are these any good?

 

[sabian92]

If you aren't on rough stuff, you don't need them - you even admit to having them locked most of the time. Front suspension will suck your speed - I had a bike with front forks, I went from that to a road bike and my average speed doubled from 5 to 10mph - just by changing bike. Of course, going from 1.75 inch wide tyres to 1 inch wide tyres helped with that too.

If you don't use them much, either stick with them locked (if you can't afford to replace them) or get some rigid forks.

 

[HLaB]

From what you say Pikey, not doing any serious offroad, you'd be better with the lighter rigid forks IMO for the reasons said above ^^^

 

[CopperCyclist]

Upgrade to the Rock Shox Rebas, take it offroading properly and buy a road/hybrid bike for the road!

Flippancy aside, I agree with everyone else, rigid forks are the best for day to day use, you only need suspension if you are actually going to use the MTB for MTBing, otherwise it's just speed and energy sapping overkill.

 

[G-Zero]

As above.... Couldn't agree more.

I've had a full sus for years (pre dated locking sus) and it was great when used properly, doing drop offs and rough single track, but I've been forced in to using it as a commuter lately and every single bob of the suspension = wasted energy/forward momentum.

 

[Zoiders]

Swings and round abouts, get over this idea that MTBs are "heavy" or "slow" as a good one like a Dale is most certainly not, most dale hardtails err on the side of XC racing so they are perffectly nippy and aero if you want them to be. I would choose one for urban use over most lumpy boring hybrids any day of the week.

If you are runnning off road tyres then switching to a rigid fork is going to do little, it certainly wont double your average speed, a simple switch to slicks would help enormously though.

If you are runnnig a fatty headshock with the lock out I would leave it alone, weight wise it's not far off most rigid forks.

 

[Chris S]

Not - dual suspension bikes aren't refered to as pogo sticks without good reason.

 

[Black Sheep]

If it's the front forks that came with the bike, they could be due a service, as components wear then play can develop allowing the movement shown to you by the bike shop.

having them serviced would involve a strip-down and re-build with new bushings and seals put in, essentially making it a new fork from old parts. this may be cheaper than an upgrade, it may not.

a cheap and quick way to help solve any twisting would be to fit a brake booster, this will give some stiffness through the brake mounts (rim brake mounts) a set of forks I had used to require this due to age.

if you're doing little off road, then as others have said, changing to a rigid fork might be a plan, if you want to keep suspension for those times you're off road, a service / upgrade is the other way forward.

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

PS I've been toying with some of those Mosso blade type ones off eBay, are these any good?

They have A2C of about 410mm, so unless your current forks are very old and have short travel they are going to change the geometry of your bike and are likely to make handling more twitchy.

Without knowing what you have and the condition (I generally take salesman's suggestion with a LARGE lump of salt) it is impossible to give you advice with any degree of confidence, but as Zoiders and Black Sheep said in this case it is quite possible that changing the forks may not be the best option for you.

 

[Zoiders]

You can suspension correct a short rigid fork with a spacer that goes over the crown race, Kona where doing it with the P2 fork for a while to save changing production lines.

Goldtech could most likey supply one, they also sell the convesrion spacers that drop into over size headtubes like the dale so you can run a 1 1/8 headset.

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

You can suspension correct a short rigid fork with a spacer that goes over the crown race, Kona where doing it with the P2 fork for a while to save changing production lines.

Does such a thing really exist for the present purpose? I would be very surprised given crown races and therefore bearings and cups are generally different geometrically for different headset brands/models, and even if it exists I can’t see how it can be safe given steerer outside diameter changes and steerer wall can get thinner away from the crown (again not in a standardised way for different forks brands/models), especially when the steerer is alloy/carbon.

What I know exist principally to address forks/frame clash issues are slightly thicker crown races (only up to 7mm) that may be available for specific headsets, or perhaps unusually thick lower headset stack (adding up to about 15mm mostly through a thick lower cup), but I suspect neither is adequate or indeed economic here although available off the shelf.

 

[Zoiders]

Sorry it slid over the crown and the race then seated on top of it.

I would imagine it's a case of try one and see.

 

[Muddyfox]

If you are runnnig a fatty headshock with the lock out I would leave it alone, weight wise it's not far off most rigid forks.

The ultra fatty headshocks really are very light and the lock out is very good .. and with a set of slicks on it'l turn its hand to most jobs and do them well

 

[Zoiders]

What you can also do with disc eqipped dale's is that you a can have 700c rims with 23/25mm-ish tyres built up on disc hubs and they fit in the rigid fork with no risk of making contact with the fork crown as you could with a telescopic fork.