Toying with slapping some SID 120’s into my 18″ Explosif that I believe dates from 2003 / 2004.

You’ll loose 20 – 30mm on sag but would the fork still be too long?

I can tell/feel the smallest adjustments on my road bikes but the HT doesn’t get a lot of use and TBH I probably wouldn’t notice a change in geometry.

Yay or nay?

be fine 😀

yes FIN .Slightly greater risk of snapping something due to increased leeverage but it will be fine IMHO*. I ran 140’s on one for a while which was overkill to be fair.
* is not an engineer

Yes but will you notice / care?

I run an old bike with forks that are too long. its slackened off the angles which I like and raised the BB which I cannot tell. On climbing the front end wanders. I put up with that

i had the blue explosif from about 2004/5 and replaced the 80mm Marzochi forks with some 100mm fox vanillas. it didn’t increase the axle crown height at all and made the ride far nicer. no problems so far

Strangely enough, I have done just this on a 2002 Lava Dome recently. It’s got 130mm forks on and does wander a bit on the climbs, but seems ok. Wouldn’t mind some 100mm forks to ‘tighten up’ the front a bit though.

I put some 120s on an old Marin that came with 80s.

It’s very stable. Doesn’t like turning much though. It’s actually nicer than the 80s which where always on a knife-edge, but I bet 100s would have been better.

It ruined my old Explosif, and I only went to 100mm.

I like a bike that turns – it’s not as if the bike kept jumping into the undergrowth with the correct length fork. I’ve got 80mm rigid forks on it now, with flat bars and flipped down stem – ok, so that’s about as committed as it gets, but it is still a long way from unrideably twitchy.

I’d get some short fork, or some that you can adjust to get just-so.

Cheers for the replies folks.

I put some basic (2008) 100mm Rebas w/o lockout on it a couple of years ago having completely given up with the Zokes it came with.

My HT is actually heavier than my F/S so I thought some SIDS would lighten it up a bit and a lockout would be nice for the road/flat sections.

Yes that’s throwing money at a ‘weight weenie’ problem but hey it’s my money and short of a C/F frame, I’m unlikely to get the weight down more without a major change of spec. – It’d be cheaper to spunk £1700+ on a new bike if I was to go down that route TBH.

Get some Project 2 rigid forks and a nice fat front tyre. Cheap solution – fun in a different way – makes your ht lighter and different to your other bike.

Get some Project 2 rigid forks and a nice fat front tyre. Cheap solution – fun in a different way – makes your ht lighter and different to your other bike.

Or resurrect my 1994 Cindercone that’s been hanging up unused for the past 7 years. – I have toyed with rebuilding this back to it’s original spec on and off but it’s one of those “when I get round to it” jobs.

hmmm i was asking a similar thing about my hardtail…majority of people were saying i shud go no more than 100mm….then agin my frame size is only 13 inch…
still awaitng email from Loco tuning, see wot they have to say 😉