right, having ridden short travel bikes everywhere for years I have finally gone and got a proper “all mountain rig” (dude) but my question is should i get a height adjustable fork such as a talas or two step as I do enjoy the up just as much as the down? thoughts, thanks.

Personally no, fixed travel and ride around the extra height, benefit form the better performance and feel of the fixed travel spring (coil or air) on the way along and down.

Whenever I’ve had them I’ve always found it a faff. The old rockshox used to knock when reduced. Also I always forgot about them and had them up on the climbs and down on the descents.

I have some (Revelations). The change from 150 to 120 helps when climbing. But my travel adjust bit has just stopped working, so they have gone back to Fork Hospital.

Not sure if more complicated internals makes them less reliable? My sektor coil travel adjust forks had no issues.

If you are buying a frame to match then it’s not really needed. Useful for older frames designed for shorter travel. it noticeably improves the climbing then.

Just thinking about this today. I have an adjustable 140-180 Marzocchi 66. The frame also has an adjustable shock mount and an adjustable rate shock, and consequently I have a huge range of adjustments I can make.

I was a bit ambivalent about it as a bike until I moved the shock mount forwards, which slackened the angles, but I also wound in the fork a bit which steepend them up again. Net result – lower bike, much better handling. I’ve also experimented with a flat bar and winding the forks back out again to bring the bars back up – not so happy with that round Swinley today but might be good in the mountains.

It’s also handy to wind it all the way out when you get to somethign really steep.

A lot of modern longer travel bikes are so low of bottom bracket that lowering it further seems a bad idea for climbing.

Yes, but mine wasn’t 🙂

I like the adjustable travel of my fork. I can climb without dropping the fork, but for long climbs I often will drop it from 140 to 100 as it is definitely easier; the front end tends to wander less and I can concentrate more on traction & forward momentum than worrying about keeping the front wheel pointing in the right direction.

Not sure I would specifically buy a travel adjust fork – my bike came with one fitted (Stumpjumper FSR).

I’ve got a U-TUrn on my Inbred (85-115mm, I think) and don’t find it as necessary to adjust the travel on that as it’s already fairly steep to start with compared to the Stumpjumper.

To be fair I do just leave it on 160 most of the time to avoid the faff.

I did rather like having a climbing lockdown on my Pace forks though, that was nice.

It’s also handy to wind it all the way out when you get to somethign really steep.

Whereas a confident rider would simply get on with it.

travel adjusters on forks are great for insecure faff queens.
See knee pads also.

Blue Pig mk1 plus 95-140mm pikes here, love it!

95 for really steep climbs
120-odd for singletrack
140 for bombing downhill

I use the u-turn on my Lyrics quite a lot, as the front end tends to wander on steep climbs otherwise (Cotic Hemlock). Perhaps if I was a better climber or if my frame had different geometry I wouldn’t need it, but for now I wouldn’t get forks without travel adjust.

I find the 120mm option on my DPA Pikes very useful for steep climbs. It doesn’t get used much but I’m glad I have it.

Whereas a confident rider would simply get on with it.

Nice insult, cheers.

Actually it wasn’t nicely done at all.

PS don’t wear knee pads or any other armour.

My sons Talas feels odd in compression and rebound compared to my F120’s.

You don’t need to wear the knee pads silly, they’re just another nice excuse to have in your bag for when you’re worrying about riding the next section. 😉

Don’t own them, don’t use a bag… 🙂

Depends on the bike and the terrain
I used them on my 456 tala at 100-120-140. Various settings dependent on various factors
I have Pikes on the orange and change sometimes for really steep climbs
My other three bikes dont adjust but they dont really need to
I think once you get to longer travel its useful but less so under 120 mm

Naturally i am not as awesome as mtbel….then again who is?

I’ve had different height adjust forks in the past (Marz ETA, RS U-Turn, DT Swiss LC) and although they all worked, i.e. they lowered the front end, and reduced bounce when climbing out the saddle, it was a bit of a faff reaching down to flick a lever while trying to prepare yourself for the sharp uphill.

However, I’m now running what I think is the perfect solution – DT Swiss Twin Shot with remote lever. Now even if I’m already out the saddle sprinting up a hill, I just push a small lever with my thumb and the front lowers by 45mm and stiffens up (not locked out, still allows a bit of give). Same again to revert back to full travel. In short, it’s excellent.

So my advice is, definitely go for a fork with ‘climb’ mode, but only if you can get a bar mounted remote to control it – which severely limits your choice unfortunately, but worth considering.

I’ve a set of revs dual position 140/120 29er forks. Use it all the time on climbs. Makes such a difference on the steep climbs. My horsethief was designed for a 120 or 140 fork so it works well.

I do find that on the 120 they don’t feel as good as but I never run them downhill at that unless I forget. So far touch wood the forks have been flawless. Highly recommended but they are slightly heavier and more expensive than standard forks.

They made a significant difference on older frames run at their travel limits. These days a lot of am bikes feel a lot more balanced and settled with a long fork so no.

As for knee pads great for some rides but just on all the time, even better for cold wet UK rides to keep the worst of the icy mud off.

Run hardtails with U turn in the past and it makes for a very versatile bike… street riding, skateparks + jumps etc use 100mm, then unleash the full 140mm for DH shenanigans…

(You can also tweak in-between those extremes for those emotional moments when you need to fine tune your relationship with gaia n stuff)

Not sure if it would translate so well over to FS (though it would be nice to have the option to run 140-160 on the front of a 140mm bike)

Climbing wise, a lockout (or better still adjustable threshold damping) is probably a better investment.

I loved the idea of TALAS 36 160-130-100 to suit the DH/Trail/BMX track intentions I had for my Slackline, but the performance was too compromised and I ended up changing the air spring to a float at 140.

On the other had I really like the dual position 160/130 Pikes on my Zesty (though don’t use the 130 as often as I thought I would to be honest).

Why was the performance compromised?

I really liked the idea of adjustable travel, but just put some 160 bombers on my blue pig. Loads of adjustable forks I looked at just sounded like trouble, particularly marz ones at the time.

And I always beat you up and down the …… eeer…

IGMC 😉

I like the adjustable forks as my bike does it all, everything from Bridleways, Trail Centres to Bike Parks & Alps. They are good on bikes that are very slack, dropping the front from 180 to 140 really does help on those steep inclines and long climbs.

Quite often I’ll keep the front in 140 mode and the rear in 110mm and it is perfect like that for most things, only need to unleash the 180/185mm monster on tough downhills, which transforms the bike. Really does feel like 2 bikes rolled into one.

I wouldn’t recommend 2-Step, especially the Lyrik 2 Step, unless you want to get it serviced twice a year due to the 2 step going wrong and don’t mind having the damper replaced once in a while. I hear good things about the Fox TALAS 2015 fork, but for some reason they haven’t released it yet!?

Quite like the RC2 on my bike, 3 step change.. 100mm for uphil and flat stuff… 130 for most trail riding with teh option of 160 for the downs…. I dont find teh performance consistant in all settings for some reason. Its soft at 100mm, great at 130 and firm at 160. I’m on my second one now, via ebay / pinkbike.

Would miss not being able to adjust a fork, as I use this feature a lot.

Not for me, I’ve used TALAS forks in the past, it puts too much weight onto my wrists for climbing these days, and on my old Enduro it made the BB way too low, pedal strikes all the time.

Plus there’s usually a small performance penalty.

There’s usually a higher price to pay.

You’ll forget to put them back full height 2-3 times a year, well I do anyway and the end results ranges from annoying to terrifying.

I have Dual Positions Pikes, 120/160mm. I would cope with them at full travel fine, but I like climbs to be easier and dropping the front does that for me. I use it on almost every ride. Some easier rides, say Sherwood Pines, I will run it in the low setting for the whole thing. But I’d rather avoid that sort of trail and ride the sort of thing where I can use 160mm. Which involves big climbs. Which require a lower front end.

I also have one bike for big days in the mountains and xc racing. A 160mm XC race bike is very tall and cumbersome, so I use the 120mm setting for that, though I accept this is a relatively niche use.

I like it on my hardtail as its always been prone to wheelying on really steep climbs. Totally unnecessary on my full sussers.

So depends on the bike

Have got some olde U-turn Pikes they have their uses if only to write condescending posts on STW about how 10 mm travel affects the geometry

Have got some olde U-turn Pikes they have their uses if only to write condescending posts on STW about how 10 mm travel affects the geometry

😀

I’ve had TALAS forks in the past but beyond the first few rides I never bothered with anything but the full 130mm travel.

On my current bikes I run a FS with Pikes and a XC HT with Rebas and I don’t even bother to lock them out. I do use the lockout/climb setting on the FS which is running a Monarch Debonair RT3 as it reduces bobbing in the lower gears

Never liked them. I prefer fixed travel forks. That’s what the bike is designed around. Never really had a problem with the front wandering. It just takes a little change in riding style to adapt to longer forks

I like mine. 120-150mm Revs on a Dialled PA, designed for 100-140mm forks.

It’s used more as a 120mm fork with an option for occasional hooning than 150mm with an option for occasional climbs.

I like the option, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I’m that sophisticated a fork user to pick up on the shortcomings of the adjustable design.

And as I’ve admitted that, you could just as well say that I might as well fix them at 130mm and ride around the travel rather than riding around the suspension shortcomings.

Which I think is exactly what LoCo is doing with the same frame and the same forks?

gimmicks, all of it.

my HT (dialled PAC) has some custom/bodged revs. they were the 150mm flavour, internal spacers down to, er, either 130 or 140 and the lockout internals and remote removed.

Which I think is exactly what LoCo is doing with the same frame and the same forks?

I think I id have them at 130 for trail riding & dropped to 110 for racing, going back a bit as have been through about 4 hardtails since the Albert, it was just too short in the top tube for me at 6’3″.
The Mk1 albert I ran 140mm Fox 32 vans on, they even had a qr 😯 😉 Going back a long time though.

I’m in the no camp myself.

I think that’s partly down to bad experiences in the past (early Talas forks that felt horrid and a pair of Pikes that wound themsleves down all of the time) and partly because it’s just another thing to break.

The Z1’s on my Slackline had the ATA adjustment which I used once which resulted in the bike feeling horrible to ride. I preferred the slightly wander feeling with them at full extension.

My full sus climbs fine with 160mm forks – I’ve not even used the TRC switch thatr firms them up.