Hello hive mind! tricky situation ahoy…

Nice guy that also commutes to work by bike, does a lot of road riding, also has a mtb. A good one, but a few years old. Carbon frame, hope mono minis, hardtail.

However, I have seen the bike before but did not realise it was his, and the forks are on the wrong way round. 😯

I don’t often see him, I know his name but we do not cross paths at all professionally except the occasional chat whilst locking up our bikes: how to tell him in the right way?

Not wanting to offend, and he is also very northern. 😉

As an aside, one assumes having teh dropouts pointing backwards means the handling must be somewhat more twitchy? Any other reasons why it is a bad idea?

Ta muchly,
Kev

Do make sure they’re not Manitou or Pace before having this conversation 😉

and he is also very northern

let Darwin work his magic for the betterment of all mankind 😉

before you cause an issue are you sure they arent reverse arch like manitou or pace?

I pointed this out to a guy once on a ridgeback while stopped at some lights, he just said- been like it since I got it and rode on

Having the forks on backwards makes it less twitchy (more trail) but less balanced downhill (shorter wheelbase) – and his front wheel might come out under hard braking!

Ask him if it’s at all twitchy to ride/ frightening to take hands off the bars.

If he says yes, offer him a ‘bike fit’ and charge him a £100 for 2 minutes with an Allen key. Win!

Manitou or Pace

or DT Swiss (which I think evolved from Pace)

I told someone the same thing recently. She told me it made the front end higher so she preferred it. Left it at that.

and his front wheel might come out under hard braking!

No it won’t – it’s less likely to come out under hard braking then when it’s the right way round – the forces are pushing the wheel into the dropouts.

What about waiting until you see him and saying: “hey, do you realise your forks are on backwards?”.

Just an idea.

During one of our weekly group rides a guy who hadn’t been out for a while says his feet have started rubbing on the front wheel as he turns. He is a big guy with big feet so I think well maybe that’s how it is. Then he says it didn’t use to do it. We then point out that his forks are round the wrong way. Turned out he had changed his stem a few weeks before and the wheel must have swung round without him noticing. Stopped on the trail and fixed it there and then. Bit embarrassing for him but we are a nice bunch and didn’t take the mickey too much.

I think they forget that the brake calliper is now on the correct side (q.v. roadrat) of the fork leg njee 🙂

Having the forks on backwards makes it less twitchy (more trail)

Only once you are going really quite quickly. At any sort of normal speed this’ll be outweighed by the fact that with the forks backwards the height of front of the bike drops very quickly as the wheel turns off centre, so your weight is trying to push the wheel off centre so the weight can drop. It happens with the forks the right way round too, increasingly so with a slacker headangle and is the reason for dodgy steering at low speeds on very slack headangled bikes. Normally the fork offset counters it a bit but in this case it’s making it worse.

OP, I’d be tempted to simply fix it and say nothing. He hasn’t noticed it being wrong, what’s the odds he’ll notice the change?

I’d be tempted to simply fix it and say nothing

This. 🙂

Leave a note on his bike with a photo of how they should be fitted?

How about turning it around on yourself – put your bike next to his – “Oh – have I got my forks on back to front?”

I was riding Gisburn on my own, stopped for a cig, and a group of lads pulled up, all on decent full sussers. I glanced at them and immediately had a ‘whats wrong with this picture’ moment. One of them had his forks on backwards.

I immediately said: “scuse me mate. You do know your forks are on backwards?”

He looked baffled as to why they would be. From the sniggering coming from his mates, I suspect they probably became ‘the wrong way round’ fairly recently. Possibly when he’d nipped for a piss or something. Surely you’d notice though? It looked potentially lethal!

How about turning it around on yourself – put your bike next to his – “Oh – have I got my forks on back to front?”

Why so complicated??! Just tell him next time you see him, but do make sure they are the wrong way round, and aren’t some odd design.

If they’re on the wrong way round the brake mount is facing forward and all the force of the front brake is trying to pull the calliper bolts out of the mount on the fork (assuming it’s a post mount). Which would be a little bit dangerous.

If it’s an IS mount then meh, let him do what he wants

just tell him straight, and offer to set it right 🙂

I have seen this a number of times whilst riding through London on my commute, have engaged in friendly conversation with the rider, stopped with them at the next opportunity and set their bike right for them (I’m a bike mechanic and always carry basic tools), given them a business card for our shop and invited them to contact us when they need any help in the future 😉

Spotted an old couple riding hybrid/shopper catalogue bikes round Sherwood a while ago, both forks on wrong.

My mate was very tactful – something like “Excuse me, it looks like the person that built your bikes for you has put the forks on wrong. Easy mistake, but they will ride much better the other way. Would you like me to put them right for you?”

They were very grateful and only slightly embarrassed – the ‘3rd person’ who assembled took the blame 😉

Express the problem to him through the medium of interpretive dance in the car-park outside work

@gravity-slave

good work!

most recently saw a lad riding no-handed whilst chatting on his phone, with the forks back to front on his carrera mountain bike

very impressed with his handling skills, but I turned his forks round after chatting to him, and he told me the bike had been like since he got it “from halfords” about 2 years before!

Make sure it’s not Gary M first.

I had this very conversation with a neighbour last summer – he’s a nice bloke & I know him reasonably well.
Started off by asking him if he had problems with the front wheel hitting his feet.. ‘yeah, I do actually’

It had been that way since he got it from Halfords & I’m not sure he was totally convinced I was right.

I had this exact conversation with someone at CLIC24 with a set of Fox forks a few years back.

He said he preferred them that way.

Very strange.

Does it look like this?

There’s a bike in our local Halfords like that. Told the young assistant at Xmas and even this Saturday they are still wrong. The bike has been wheeled around, display to display at least three times since then…

Here they are. Nipped out to take a quick piccy. Deffo not right! I guess he got confused with the manitou brace being reversed from normal.

I think what I was looking for was a few pointers as to potential issues it might create, rather than a “look how right I am” approach, so thanks all for the pointers.

Seems the list is:
wheel coming out of drop outs
forcing caliper from its mounting
wheel/toe overlap
“interesting” handling characteristics

Any ideas on the dance moves I should use to get the point across effectively?

😆

I guess he coud also respond on the un-wisee-ness of a fat bloke like me wearing bib tights, and of course he would be correct!

Don’t say owt.

A bid of death never hurt anyone.

That’s properly brilliant, they are Manitous and they are on the wrong way.

Seems the list is:
wheel coming out of drop outs
forcing caliper from its mounting
wheel/toe overlap
“interesting” handling characteristics

Add ‘sniggering from immature internet forum users’.

“forcing caliper from its mounting”, over and over again. Bloody deathtrap

You should change it for him whilst he’s working.
Would be a nice surprise to come back to.

looks like there is enough room where its locked up for you to nip out with an allen key and turn the fork the right way round… and see if he notices anything. However the bike also has a crown-mounted mudguard that will be fouled by a reverse arch fork the correct way round: perhaps the owner wanted the mudgard on so turned the fork round to fit it? ❓

At least he’s got a spoke-mounted reflector, so it’s not a total death trap.

Seems the list is:

wheel coming out of drop outs
—-quite the opposite- braking forces are pushing the wheel into its dropouts. You clearly weren’t around for the titanium skewer debacle in the early noughties. Having your fork the right way round is when theres a risk of the brake pulling the wheel out of the dropout

forcing caliper from its mounting
—- perhaps, but if its tightened up properly I don’t see why, if the bolts are loose then somethings going to go wrong whatever way round things are

wheel/toe overlap
—— only if thats happening

“interesting” handling characteristics
—— I think the fact that most people don’t notice shows how little real difference its making – if you’re riding on the ragged edge, probably, if you’re riding to the shops, probably not that important. There quite a marked difference in trail between the various bikes I ride – they all feel like bikes. You could probably tell the difference if you had two bikes to compare side by side. I’ve never tried reversing my forks but I doubt I’d crash into the nearest primary school and explode if I did.

Are you sure it’s not the frame that’s the wrong side of the fork?

“forcing caliper from its mounting”

I’m doubtful about this, it’s not ideal certainly but I’d be surprised if downhillers generated enough braking force to strip a steel bolt, let alone a commuter bimbling along.

Maccruiskeen if they don’t have something to compare it to then the slightly dodgy handling of their new bike is probably something someone who hasn’t ridden much/at all since childhood can adapt to. If I add or remove 50psi from your suspension forks you’ll still be able to ride, you’d ride a damn sight better with the correct pressure in tho.

If I add or remove 50psi from your suspension forks you’ll still be able to ride, you’d ride a damn sight better with the correct pressure in tho.

Saw a guy in glasgow riding with snapped handle bars – steering with one hand, working the brake with lose piece of bar with the other. Didn’t seem to be a get-you-home arrangement, it just seemed to be how he rode it.

Obviously having the forks on backwards is wrong but its hardly the big-deal of wrong that people seem to think if the riders doesn’t notice – not compared to holding a pistol back to front or putting the milk in first when you’re making a cuppa.

Well, quick update for you! Thanks all for the advice.

In the end, I sent a quick email letting him now that advice sought on the issue suggested the impact of the problem varied from “bugger all” to “certain death”. I did soften things a bit by saying that Manitou forks can cause the confusion on correct orientation.

Turns out that the chap had recently moved, and in the move the packers had rotated the bars parallel to the frame. In his haste in unpacking he had quickly rotated them back round, used the bridge as a guide, and tightened it all back up.

He was most grateful for my note, saw him this morning and had a laugh about it.

He said that, of course, the first thing he did when he got my note was google “manitou suspension fork pictures” 😆

Sure enough, that convinved him to fix it.

We agreed that prob not a big issue, but sods law says that if nothing had been done it might have ended differently.

Thanks all!

Kev