I’ve just been press-ganged into servicing my S-i-L’s newly acquired bike. Fortunately, this has turned out to be a 2002 Scott Voltage and not the BSO horror I feared. However, the Top Gun (!) elastomer forks appear to have no travel whatsoever. While this is not necessarily a bad thing given that it’s likely to be used for going to the park and not eg. Rivington Pike, is it normal for elastomer forks in winter as I’ve been told (as the elastomer goes hard in low temperatures), or are they most likely knackered?

Andy

probably knackered. The elastomers don’t last forever.

Both.
Elastomers in cold weather are a lot stiffer than the same elastomers in hot weather but when they’re 10 years old they’re probably knackered anyway.

Probably knackered.

My Manitou Magnum R’s still worked fine a couple of years ago when I finally got round to changing them for something more modern.

Always felt a bit stiffer in winter, but not THAT much.

I’m going to put my old Specialized back to standard condition and sell it to someone on Retrobike one of these days. 🙂

a friend had some elastomer forks back in the day – on hot days he used all the travel just sat on the bike on cold days they were a rigid fork..

The elastomers in my old RockShox Quadra’s went solid. My brother still uses them to commute on though. Thought about moulding some more from silicon, just to see if it would work. 🙂

on hot days he used all the travel just sat on the bike on cold days they were a rigid fork

One of the guys at work has an elastomer-forked Orange which he still rides regularly, and that was pretty much his description.

Given that this service is being done on the cheap as much as possible, am I safe to assume that all that will happen if the elastomer has died is that there will be no travel, rather than anything bad?

Andy