Been looking at £500 bikes for friends who are keen to start riding this year. It appears to me that forks appear to be the weak link in the spec. I’ve started ignoring bikes with suntour forks but that really narrows things down. These bikes are for people who really aren’t going to service them regularly. So, what have people found to be good quality cheap forks?

dunno, but the b-twin decathlon have looks good value at that price point, if you hadn’t seen it.

Decathlon put a Rockshox Recon on their £500 Rockrider. Think it’s a spring model rather than an air one, but to my mind that bike is the best VFM available for that price at the moment. When I recommended to to a bloke from work that included a quick search for discounted older models.

I used to have one of their bikes, and it was brilliant, no worry about weird geometry or poor quality frames.

edit – ooh, that’s two recommendations, I might have got in there first if my typing was quicker.

I’ve started ignoring bikes with suntour forks but that really narrows things down.

all rock shox forks are made by suntour, and so are fox lower legs, as well as many others.

I’ve had suntour forks and really liked them.

At that price point searching for old stock on sale will yield huge benefits. Have a look at Cube too.

I’ve still got the cheap RST fork my bike came with, and never had a problem. I am a mincer, though.

Suntour Epicon forks are actually quite good – the rest of the range are a bit poor however.

cheap forks on entry level bikes

is one thing (to be expected really), but ‘cheap forks on £2000’ bikes is another.

i’m looking at you Specialized.

Hi yes the bikes in Decathlon definitely worth a look or 15% off at Dales cycles on April fools day (no seriously) I wouldn’t worry overly, you can always upgrade the forks later when you have the cash.

Cheers guys. I’ve only come across Suntour forks a couple of times. Glad to hear they make something passable. Didn’t know they produced so much stuff for everyone else although I guess it makes sense.

The folks asking for advice are not the sort who would relish the idea of dropping a few hundred quid to upgrade the forks in a year or two. I want to make sure they get something half decent as I’ll be the first port of call for anything that stops working or makes a “funny banging noise”.

[old man mode]
The majority of modern day forks are light years better than the Rock Shox Quadra 10s I used to ride everywhere, impressed at their performance over rigid forks. Don’t get caught up in the hype.
[/old man mode]

Quadra 10’s weren’t exactly good forks BITD. MAG10/21’s was where it was at.

Nothing wrong with any forks on low end bikes, just don’t expect them to last, having ridden with people using the basic Suntour / Specialized forks they work fine, but seem to finish the rides with less part than they started with. For servicing though, that’s take off and replace time.

old forks might not have been very well damped or have sophisticated action but they did seem to have better bushes (which were replaceable) than modern cheap forks. (or maybe nostalgia is filling in the pot holes on Memory Lane).