First Fork Upgrade- I know Nothing

Hi guys

Please be patient here as my mechanical/technical knowledge when it comes to bikes is woeful, as much as I enjoy mtbing.

I bought a Cube Attention in 2010 (2009 model though) and have been riding it round the Peaks which has resulted in the seals on the forks breaking so I now want to upgrade.

The problem is I am utterly clueless. I don’t even know how much travel the current broken ones have- they are Suntour XCM. I assumed they were 110mm but I haven’t been able to verify this as the current Cube specifications on the net refer to different sets of forks and it seems it’s not as simple as just measuring them.

Can anyone help me out here? :oops:

I have a budget of about £250 and am happy to have the same amount of travel that my current forks have (whatever that is) or might be considered appropriate for my bike model and general Peaks riding around Hayfield, Jacobs Ladder etc.

Any suggestions as to what travel, or better yet specific model of fork I should look for would be very gratefully received.

If they get any more in I’d be snapping some of THESE up…

Great forks. Can go to 120mm if you fancy a bit more travel.

hi Duggan, went through this myself not so long back, couple of bits i found out!
Find out the max and min travel your frame will support – too much and it climbs awfully (i switched to a 120mm fork and it ruined the bike!)

2nd hand forks are well worth a look – you’ll get loads more for your money, and it does make a difference to the bike.

If you can find a pair, i’d highly recommend the rockshox rebas – switched to these on my old bike and the change was stunning.

If you want an uber cheap 2nd hand set – i have a set of Tora 302’s? Bit of damage to the paintwork but otherwise sound.

Thanks for the posts guys.

Funnily enough a guy I met out on the trail the other week recommended Rebas so seems like that will be my starting point being as that’s three now.

So I will find out the min/max travel for my frame. Am I also right in thinking that I will have to make sure the steerer tube measurement is the right one and also the type of axle (probably 9mm QR)?

Cheers for the second hand offer Spudly, think I’m going to go with new though as I have the cash saved now.

Although the forks on your bike are currently 80mm travel, the frame should comfortably cope with 100mm. If you go for Rebas you can always shorten them to 80mm with a spacer if you have any doubts once you’ve ridden it. Yes, you’ll need to go for qr unless you also plan to change your wheels, but qr is fine anyway and you’ll find better deals.

If it was me, I’d buy The Reba Teams on this page with an extra 10% off if you sign up for Merlin’s VIP club. They’re some of the best forks I’ve ever had, amazing value and will transform your bike.

Another vote for rebas in the 100-120mm category

I would also be surprised if your frame isn’t 100mm capable – the suntours are probably only 80mm because of the budget.

Another vote for reba teams – enough of a fork that you will be unlikely to want to upgrade them for a very long time.

It is also very likely that you have a standard Q/R wheelset, so you should get a 9mm Q/R fork – if you then want to upgrade the wheels in future you can get Hope hubs and convert to a 9mm thruaxle for a bit more stiffness and they will still work with your forks.

If you can find some 120mm reba you can reduce them to 100mm, which offers another upgrade path for the future.

If you look 2nd hand for rebas the ones before BB motion control can be ‘Pushed’ by TFTuned, which bring up to high performance. The newer ones have BB motion control which is roughly as good as the Push kit.

Thanks for the advice people, I actually feel a lot more comfortable about all of this now.

Two more quick noob questions than I think I am almost done- if I get forks with 1 1/8″ steerer than these will fit right?

Lastly nobody has mentioned brake mounts so I am assuming as long as they say ‘Disc Brake’ (or don’t specify otherwise) than the fittings where the calipers go are all standard and I will be able to just put my standard Shimano calipers on there?

get the reba’s they will fit fine on your bike and you will never look back

A second-hand blackbox damped reba sounds like a good choice, though make sure you only buy one that is either almost new or recently serviced (make sure you get proof before you buy – a receipt from the servicers with a date!) – else you may find that you are in for a 100 pound sting for a full service (and you may as well have bought new!).

Take out your front wheel, find the axle. If it’s small and spindly (like the back axle) (as it should likely be) 9mm QR is what you need.

Although you could always consider it an excuse to buy a new wheelset! (for 15QR!)

yes to the brakes – although there’s 2 diff types of mount (so you might need a little adaptor thingy) but yes, your disc brake calipers will fit any ‘disc brake’ fork.

2012 rebas are going cheap at merlin, I’ve just bought the 15mm maxle ones for around £290 with the vip discount

Excellent, internet forums at their best :-)

Thanks again for the advice, I think I actually have an idea of what I’m doing now and it definitely looks like I’ll be going after the Rebas of one sort or another.

Only complication will be the headset crown race that is on the current forks – you will need to remove this and then fit it on the new forks.
There are cheap tools for this or your local halfords/bike hut will probably do it for not much.

Or you may be able to find some helpful STWer locally with the tools to do it for you – I have some and am in Horsell, Surrey if that is any good.

I find a thin flat bladed screw driver and a mallet happily get the crown race off, line up the screwdriver with where the bottom of the race meets the fork crown, tap away a few time till it lifts a bit, go round the race till you can lift it off. Easy as pie :)

and put it on?

Reverse of taking it off :wink:

With a screw driver?

How can you ensure that you have fitted it exactly square to the steerer tube?

Putting it on, I use a big adjustable spanner spaced out to the size of the race and use a mallet hitting square down on it.
Or if you don’t have an adjustable spanner big enough, use a mallet after greasing the race and whack it down, maybe a screw driver for those last couple of knocks. It’s an easy job, sounds harder than it is :)

nice soft chunk of wood is best for seating crown races; just work your way around it tapping it in with a hammer (using the softwood as a drift – it will deform to the shape you need and won’t damage the race).

Dave

The other complication will be the length of the steerer tube, likely way too long. You could try cutting this yourself, or do what I do and measure it (very, very carefully) and take it to the local bike shop who will cut it neatly for a fiver. Instructions below – basically, top of steerer tube needs to be around 3mm below top of stem:

Park website

cutting the steerer is the easy part! getting the crown race on and off is also simple with the (cheap) tools, but fiddly otherwise.