Hope you can help. Just got hold of an old Specialized Hardrock 26″ for my Son as he has outgrown his Scott Scale Jnr.

The forks on the Spesh have seen better days so am looking for a replacement.

Don’t want to spend a fortune so any suggestions would be welcome? Looking new or second hand.
Are the RockShox XC 28 TK Coil Forks okay? They can be had for under £80 or maybe the Suntour XCR LO 100mm which are even cheaper? I suppose weight is a consideration and they both come in around the 2.3kg mark but don’t know if that’s unduly heavy or about average. Oh and have to be v-brake compatible.

Thanks!

The forks you metion are mostly pants, I would be looking for a set of old RS SID forks unless he is a big lad or doing lots of jumping then they will be nice & light & work well enough.

Ive no experience of the forks you mention but you might struggle to get coil forks working for him, my son got a bike with coil vanillas when he was about 12, even with the lightest spring they were ok at best. He’s 14 now and they’re finally starting to work as they should. I’d go air if your budget can stretch
In saying that, most 12 year olds won’t care if they’re forks aren’t performing to their fullest potential, they’ll just get on with riding the bike…..

Neither, get some used air forks. I have a set of Magura air forks on my 10 year olds rockhopper (£90 used) which work great. His old 26″ bike had a set of rockshox dukes air. Cost only £50 and worked great. I think they even had motion control. I’d say have a look for the dukes or as another user said, some older sids.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Will go on the hunt for some SIDS or Dukes 🙂

I picked up some decent old Rebas for about £90 for my daughter which have been perfect.

Good shout bol. Watching several items on evil bay so sure to get something suitable. The sooner the better as the boy is me every hour when he can ride it! 🙂

Why saddle him with the weight of suspension forks? He’s unlikely to want to ride anything really gnarly and at his age the weight of a bike is a significant proportion of his own weight. Fit some eXotic carbon forks and he won’t miss suspension.

globalti – sorry, but nonesense.
My kids (11 and 13) regurlarly ride gnarly routes.
We are local to GLentress and we ride the red/blue and many of the off piste bits. Racing SXC and local races, including some DH.

Should they be “saddled with the extra weight of suspension forks”???

The best way to go is to get some SH air forks that can be tuned to the rider weight.

Oh, and exptic carbon forks will cost more that a reasonable SH set of air forks

I see your point globalti but he does like to tackle the rougher stuff and if I can get get a good set of lighter weight air sprung forks then I think it is a better option than rigid forks. He will grow into the bike and as he does so the type of riding will grow with him. By getting a pair of the above recommended forks it will save approx 1.5 kilos on the total weight. The current forks appear to be made of lead and filled with concrete 🙂

Thanks for the input though.

Air forks and consider changing to a lighter weight damping oil at servicing time.

Thats a good idea jamj. Do all forks use the same oil? If so any recommendations?

Thanks!

Just a quick one.

Is a pair of Fox Talas R forks worth considering?

New or SH coil U-turn Sektor?
X-soft spring will be fine for 6-7 stone and as the rider and their bike grow, you lengthen the fork and increase the spring weight. Much more reliable for a youngster than the air options above and lighter than some too.
What no-one above has mentioned is that most air forks work very poorly and unreliably at the bottom end of their pressure range, generally starting at about 9 stone, so if your 12 year old weighs less than that, the fork will struggle to have enough consistent spring balanced with damping to respond to the trail. Fox Float & Talas are especially prone to this problem, Rebas a bit less so.

S/H on evilbay. They are old but recently serviced and are Talas R. That’s all I know.

Getting confused now but I guess the amount of travel and how responsive it is is not so much of an issue now but will be as he gets older/heavier.

Trying to build a bike that can grow with him until the frame is too small rather than have to go through all this again in 6 months if you get my drift 🙂

Rock Shox Tora- some of the old ones cover all your requirements.
I loved mine. Had a set on my hack bike for 2 years. Very abused and never serviced but they kept on working! Impressed with the perfomance and lockout was brilliant. I only payed £75.

any air fork with small is travel (up to 100mm) will be fine.
I got a set of fox float R, dropped tha air pressure and also the oil weight by 2.5. They work perfectly.

highlandman – I have a set of float R and a set of floar RL both set up with ~35 to 40 psi for my girls who weigh 6 and 7 stone.
They work really well.
20 to 25% sag, nice and supple.

Also got some reba air’s for my wife, also good for 9 stone. Not as light and not as supple as the foxes though

Cheers Chris. That’s good info 🙂

Chris, Jeff; we found that both the Talas and Float 100s sit well into their sag at around 40-50psi before the rider even gets on the bike, leaving a rider on soft fork sagged as much as 50% and correspondingly steep head angle and limited, rapidly ramping travel. Plus both forks rapidly lost pressure at these levels, as if the air pressure was too low to keep a seal somewhere ‘tight’. Even 1 or 2 psi makes a significant difference at these sort of levels.
Different experiences…
Solo Air Recon 120 is slightly better but seems to need 60psi to prop itself up, so it’s robbed of a little travel and it is a bit less supple for GF who is now an 8 stone rider.

Thanks for the above info.

Really not sure now which way to go but it seems that RS Air (Sid, Duke) seem to fair best among opinion so will go that route. If either of those don’t work as intended then I’ll stick some rigid forks on or feed him up 😉

Cheers!