I’ve been looking for some new forks for my Epic to replace the current Reba’s.

The bike is usually used for XC riding and racing so I’ve been looking at the RS Sid’s but I keep going back to look at the Lefty’s.
They’re in the sale at Qwerty at the moment, £900 for a carbon 90mm XLR fork

http://qwertycycles.co.uk/collections/cannondale-forks/products/cannondale-lefty-carbon-xlr-90mm-29er

Are the Lefty forks worth the premium over something like a Sid XX or Sid World Cup?

Having had one, and the associated hassle/expense of keeping it properly servied, I’d suggest steering well clear, and buying a ‘normal’ fork, such as a Roskshox Reba*, which in my experience has proven to be far easier to live with. The Lefty is stiffer, and a little bit lighter, but isn’t user servicable, very expensive to have serviced, and not quite as good in operation.

*Oh. No need to change then! 😀

Yes from a pure performance standpoint.

However you’ll not be able to borrow a mates front wheel if yours fails, and your bike will no longer fit most roof racks where you attach the front wheel.

Not sure why you’d say they aren’t “user servicable”? I just stripped the damper down and changed the oil in mine – It’s not that hard. A new seal kit (containing every single seal in the fork, new air valve etc.) costs £8.50.

If you’re going to buy one, I’d probably pay the extra £100 and get the new (non boot) “hybrid” design.

Cannondale Lefty XLR Carbon

Not sure why you’d say they aren’t “user servicable”?

Youo need specific proprietary tools to fuly strip the fork, which aren’t generally available to the public. Not that I’ve found anyway. And the tools are expensive. Rebas can be easily stripped with common easily available inexpensive tools. The one I have has a broken air valve, and there are bits inside the air chamber. I need to drill out a small rivet type thing in order to undo the bottom nut. PITA.

Unless newer ones are different in design?

Mmm, bearing migration…

However you’ll not be able to borrow a mates front wheel if yours fails, and your bike will no longer fit most roof racks where you attach the front wheel.

And fitting a computer poses a whole new challenge…

The only tool you really need is the castle tool, which is £28

Cannondale Super Castle Tool KH031

(used for removing the damper) The axle clamp and pin spanner are nice to have but you can make do if you have a vice or are careful with molegrips. Oh and you need an old spoke to pull the port plug thing* out.

All the tools and parts are available from Qwerty (and probably other Cannondale dealers) If they don’t list it, just ask and Lloyd will usually get it in for you.

Bearing migration? I can do a bearing reset (every 15 hours) in less than 1 minute and you don’t need to do that at all on the new forks.

There are adapters if you really want to use a “cycle computer” but I would think most would be using a smartphone / garmin / gps watch these days if they’re bothered about ride stats.

*can’t remember what it’s called.

Are Leftys great forks? Definitely. My XLR Carbon is 1260g (without steerer, but including the poploc) so it is damn light, it is also super stiff and the damping far more rounded than any other fork you can buy IMO. It’s one of those things that you could ride a lifetime and be happy without trying one but going back to a normal fork after a Lefty is tough 😀 How anyone can suggest a Lefty isn’t as good as a Reba in operation is absolutely beyond me! Certainly the PBR and XLR (basically the same as each other) dampers are really nice. Perhaps only slight difficulty is LSC is only internally adjustable but no bother in reality.

Regular maintenance is no more than any other fork and super easy to do. A full damper and telescope service is ~£150 but you’d have to have really mistreated the fork to need more than a damper service ~£90, same as any other fork. No hassle to live with at all and if anything is easier to keep clean and in tip top shape as the mud clearance is massive and there are no exposed seals or stanchions to get messed up with gritty British Winter mud.

Bearing migration and suchlike the “haters” band around is nonsense. I do this maybe once every few weeks (20 hours) and even then the bearings have barely moved. Earlier forks needed a top out every few rides but anything of the PBR/ XLR era barely needs touching (only a 2 minute job anyway).

No idea who runs a front wheel mounted “cycle computer” nowadays. Even the most basic things are best run on the rear wheel for turbo use and usually combined with cadence measuring. If you are thinking of a Lefty then having a £10 “computer” would be quite odd 😀 Garmin or smartphone all the way nowadays.

The only genuine negative is needing a new front wheel which adds ~£150 to the cost for a decent handbuilt. The good news is that the bog standard Cannondale SI hub is ~£40 and ~120g, so very light and very cheap.

Is a Lefty worth the money? Despite all of the positives I’ve described there’s no way would I pay £900+! Qwerty are great to deal with but my new and unused Lefty XLR Carbon was around £450 on evilbay. For that money they are totally worth it. I sold my previous DLR Carbon for around £300 so they can be had for much better value than new which is what I would personally recommend.

You sound like you’ve had a few Lefty’s. What’s your advice on where to get my Supermax 130 serviced?

Love Lefty’s. On my third now. The last was 6 years old and had had 2 services even though it had been used for 12, 24 hour races and the Transwales of mud and much abuse. Services were about £100 and bear in mind they should last forever as all running surfaces can be replaced due to the needle bearing arrangement.

Cheapest way to get a new Lefty. Get yourself on Pauls cycles, buy a massively reduced bike with a Lefty and sell on the bits you don’t need. A mate of mine just got a very nice aluminium hardtail for £1100 with the new style lefty on it!

(Not entirely impartial as I know and ride for Lloyd at qwerty cycles,and am a self confessed Cannondale addict)

as above, always got my leftys from eBay, had 4 or 5 i think, upgraded one with newer PBR internals, not sure who i had do the work? was someone down south

not sure who i had do the work? was someone down south

TF will do this.

Thumbprint often come up for servicing but I had difficulty getting in touch at the time I required servicing and went with TF Tuned who couldn’t have done more to help. Turnaround time is a matter of days as the fork is booked in for a specific time so the only waiting is for the posting there and back really. Would really recommend them.

My 2 cents.

I have a Lefty. It’s a PBR 90 29er fork in the older 2012 style.

I’ve run the fork for a good while now and it’s a revelation. Unbelievably smooth and stiff. It never looks although it is working on the bike, a very odd feeling.

Despite being only 90mm it feels as though it has far more travel.

One “thing” to bare in mind the cost of the Lefty for all adapter has nearly doubled since I bought mine.

Would I have another, yes. Am I also looking at the Pauls route ^^, certainly am 😉

One “thing” to bare in mind the cost of the Lefty for all adapter has nearly doubled since I bought mine.

I got mine from TF Tuned for £55. They are still on the website and fit both 1,1/8 and tapered frames with a small adapter (also included). Not too bad, but true another expense to consider

The only tool you really need is the castle tool, which is £28

Cannondale Super Castle Tool KH031

(used for removing the damper) The axle clamp and pin spanner are nice to have but you can make do if you have a vice or are careful with molegrips. Oh and you need an old spoke to pull the port plug thing* out.

Plus the external bearing cup tool I needed to buy, which i’ve only ever used twice; to install and then remove the fork. And that castle tool is a lot cheaper than the other one, at £79, which I beleived was the correct one for my fork. Are they the same?

All the tools and parts are available from Qwerty (and probably other Cannondale dealers) If they don’t list it, just ask and Lloyd will usually get it in for you.

So, I’ve got to order special proprietary tools then. Rather than simply use standard tools or be able to nip to Halfords.

Bearing migration? I can do a bearing reset (every 15 hours) in less than 1 minute and you don’t need to do that at all on the new forks.

I don’t have to do that on any other fork. It’s a design flaw.

There are adapters if you really want to use a “cycle computer” but I would think most would be using a smartphone / garmin / gps watch these days if they’re bothered about ride stats.

The adapter is £15. My cheapo LiDLs computers are £4 each. I doubt ‘most’ poeple are using smartphones/gps etc.

How anyone can suggest a Lefty isn’t as good as a Reba in operation is absolutely beyond me!

I found a Reba easier to service, set up and fine tune to my own preference, than the Lefty. That’s my own personal experience. The Lefty is stiffer, but the Reba worked better for me.

Regular maintenance is no more than any other fork and super easy to do. A full damper and telescope service is ~£150 but you’d have to have really mistreated the fork to need more than a damper service ~£90, same as any other fork.

My Rebas are free to service, as I don’t need to send them away. I can easily service them at home, with existing tols.

Bearing migration and suchlike the “haters” band around is nonsense. I do this maybe once every few weeks (20 hours) and even then the bearings have barely moved. Earlier forks needed a top out every few rides

Why should I have to do something I don’t have to with any other fork? Again; it’s a design flaw.

No idea who runs a front wheel mounted “cycle computer” nowadays. Even the most basic things are best run on the rear wheel for turbo use and usually combined with cadence measuring. If you are thinking of a Lefty then having a £10 “computer” would be quite odd Garmin or smartphone all the way nowadays.

Again again; most people don’t use smartphones/gps etc. Many folk use front wheel mounted computers. I don’t see any problem putting a £4 computer onmy Intense full susser, so why noton a Lefty? 😕

Is a Lefty worth the money?

That’s a totally subjective thing. I bought mine (Speed DLR 110) second hand for £250, wheras my (almost new) s/h Rebas cost me £100, and in my experience have been the better performing fork overall. If I could easily get into the Lefty with available tools, to fine tune the damping etc, then maybe I’d think differently. I imagine they’d perform a lot better if I could fettle them myself easily. But the thought of havng to pay omoene else to do it (which is never quite satisfactory in my experience), or buy a set of specialist proprietary tools, makes me think the Reba is a better fork if I actually want to jut ride my bke.

I love Cannondale stuff, and have always been a ‘fan’. But I think the LEfty is fraught with design flaws and a lack of user servicability, which diminishes it’s value in comparison to other products. The OP sked for opinons and advice about buying a fork, so that’s why I’m offering mine.

You can get around the computer mount issue by glueing a small magnet (must be small and can be had for about £1) to the disk spider and mounting the sensor to the lower leg between the disk mounts 🙂

Again again; most people don’t use smartphones/gps etc. Many folk use front wheel mounted computers.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use their phone to track their rides, either with Strava, Endomondo, or similar (except the ones with GPS’s!). I tell a lie, maybe the one or two I’ve remembered don’t use anything at all.
Anyway, you can buy wireless bike computers cheap enough. 😀

For me they’re a bit like Rohloffs, one of those ideas that the folk who love them, really really love them, and the rest of the world just smile nod, and back away slowly…

They’re expensive, have teeny real world benefits, that in the long run make not a massive amount of difference given the initial (and often on going) expense

There’s a reason the MTB world isn’t habitually using side sided forks or hub gears.

@nick

That’s about it really?

I had my last lefty for about 9 years and had to say I loved it it was a 2001 elo servicing can be a bit pricey but not a deal breaker I recently sold it. And have gone for a conventional marzocchi but only for a change as I hadn’t nad/road any for 9 years. I think leftys are a create xc fork saying that id love to try the new enduro lefty look very nice and has a good right up

@ stoffel – if you’re offering your under performing and troublesome and expensive to service and maintain Lefty 110DLR, I’ll give you £50 for it and the front wheel. Posted.

PM in profile. Thanks.

Haterz gotta hate. But of course luvers gotta love.
Love mine because it looks so much better than the sticky, flexy and weak alternative competition.

IMHO obviously.

My Rebas are free to service, as I don’t need to send them away. I can easily service them at home, with existing tols.

The flip side to this is that I have neither the time nor the inclination to do my own servicing, so this isn’t really an advantage. And the service intervals are better than eg. Fox.

On the subject of Lefties and maintenance, any recommendations for someone good at major repairs?
I’ve got definite wear in the needle rollers on mine. There’s noticeable play both fore & aft and I can rotate the inner slightly within the outer.
It looks like I may need inner and outer shims at £17 and needle bearings at £20, all for a pack of 4.

Normally, I’d do this myself, but as the parts description says, there may be three different sizes of shim and I don’t want to go buying multiple shim packs at £17 each to get the right size by trial and error. It would be best to leave it someone who has got all the sizes on the shelf and would only charge for those used.
Who could do that?

Depends where you live. LL Derby Nottingham serviced mine and did a good job but it did mean taking the bike into the Bury shop then waiting a fortnight.

As I mentioned above, TF will give you the quickest turnaround IME for reasonable prices. Worth giving them a call at the least to see how much fixing the issue might be (I’d guess it all falls within the telescope service option but it’s worth checking)

I have sent mine to Noah’s Ark. Great service.

Noah’s did a full bearing replacement by the way. It was about £120 with a full service with parts.

@stoffel: Clear the Lefty didn’t do it for you but in the interest of informing the OP here’s the other side…

Plus the external bearing cup tool I needed to buy, which i’ve only ever used twice

You don’t need a HT BB tool. The OP will not be using an OPI stem/ steerer on a Spesh frame so that’s one reason crossed off and secondly there’s no reason to do the top cap up any more than hand tight. I’m sure most people will know someone with one of the most common “propitiatory” tools around or at the very worst a LBS would lend you the tool for the 1 second job of loosening the cap when you first receive the fork (no need for any HT BB tool after the initial loosening).

So, I’ve got to order special proprietary tools then. Rather than simply use standard tools or be able to nip to Halfords.

Yes, it is a shame you can service a £1000+ fork with a hammer and hex set 🙄 My Marzocchi forks are as simple as they come but I wouldn’t recommend them over a Lefty. On a similar note, there’s know way I’d start pulling apart my FIT damper on my Fox forks even with all the tools in the world. Basically it is a non issue for a modern fork and the ease of replacing every single part of a Lefty in a cost effective way which keeps people running super smooth Leftys 10 years later is not something any other fork can claim. New lowers for example often cost as much as a new fork for other models/ brands.

I don’t have to do that on any other fork. It’s a design flaw.

So having to perform a lubrication fluid change/ seal clean/ foam ring lube every 20 hours in a Fox fork or perform the recommended short term servicing for your Reba a design flaw? Does the fact your Reba has exposed stanchions to pick up scratches or external seals that need to be kept clean after a ride (both unlike a Lefty) mean your Reba or any other fork has major design flaws? Of course not. A few minute job to top out a fork is hardly the end of the world.

The adapter is £15. My cheapo LiDLs computers are £4 each. I doubt ‘most’ poeple are using smartphones/gps etc.

Covered a lot by others but a fork design ruling out the use of a £4 Lidl computer is hardly the end of the world. Others have suggested sensible, cheap alternatives.

I found a Reba easier to service, set up and fine tune to my own preference, than the Lefty. That’s my own personal experience. The Lefty is stiffer, but the Reba worked better for me.

You would have been using a damper that is 4 years old which may have skewed your impressions. I wasn’t totally convinced by the stock DLR damper as I felt it needed much more LSC damping and a bit more rebound adjustment but the latest PBR/ XLR dampers are really rather nice which is worth bearing in mind for the OP.

IMO you can’t find a stiffer, more responsive fork and especially not at the weight that a Lefty comes in at. Performance as an overall package is totally worth it. Only genuine disadvantages are needing a new wheel (Lefty hubs super cheap though) and the very high asking price new (buy used/ on offer). That’s the more concise summary 😀

What’s the shortest stem anyone’s successfully run on a Lefty, by the way?

25mm on my Supermax 130. Could go to zero if needed.

stoffel – if you’re offering your under performing and troublesome and expensive to service and maintain Lefty 110DLR, I’ll give you £50 for it and the front wheel. Posted.

😆

Slap another £200 on topand I might consider it.

stoffel: Clear the Lefty didn’t do it for you but in the interest of informing the OP here’s the other side…

All been said before. Saying it again doesn’t make the argument any more convincing.

To clarify my position: The Lefty is a great fork, but in my experience proved to be to frught with issues when compard with a much cheaper ‘conventional’ fork, which I found overall to perform better for my needs. Due to it’s idiosycnracies, I never got the Lefty to work as well for me, as I have with a Reba. I am not prepared to throw so much time and money at it either.

Noah’s did a full bearing replacement by the way. It was about £120 with a full service with parts.

Oof. I have a fully equipped bike workshop at my disposal, and can do just about everything with Rebas, and a whole host of other ofrk. The one type of fork we are not set up for, is the Lefty (and Headshock which uses similar tools). We have only very very rarelrely had anyone come in needing work done on a Lefy/Headshik, and it’s not economically worth it tooling up and training for servicing them. Most other bike shops are of a similar mind. That said, if peole are prepared to spend £120 on a very simple procedure, I might just invest in some tools and set myself up to service them. Kerching! 😀

On the older Lefty’s the min stem was 80mm IIRC, does the Supermax have a lower crown?. Like my ‘orignal’ Lefty Max a lot, ignored it for years and didn’t have a major service bill (no interest in home servicing) when the seal blew, unlike any number of other forks on offer. Happily have a new one though their no way I’d pay ‘new’ prices.

Oof. I have a fully equipped bike workshop at my disposal, and can do just about everything with Rebas, and a whole host of other ofrk. The one type of fork we are not set up for, is the Lefty (and Headshock which uses similar tools). We have only very very rarelrely had anyone come in needing work done on a Lefy/Headshik, and it’s not economically worth it tooling up and training for servicing them

Please tell me you don’t work in a bike shop 😯 ? No one uses a ‘cycle computer’ these days, literally no one!

Other downside of a Lefty is that it’s more faff to remove the front wheel as you have to undo the brake calliper. I’ve been tempted a few times, but from that Qwerty link the new hybrid XLR 100 29er is actually £1100, plus wheel, plus Lefty for All adapter, that’s big money (although worth noting retail on a SID XX World Cup is >£900, so it’s not entirely stupid.

z1ppy – Member
On the older Lefty’s the min stem was 80mm IIRC, does the Supermax have a lower crown?.

Got that measurement wrong. The centre to center of the stem is 60mm but you could go way back as the crown is indeed lower.

The new (2015) Rebas look nice now they have the black ano stanchions. I’d save myself £700 and go Rockshox.

The new Rebas have the same lowers as SIDs now so very close in the weight department.

Here’s a pic. As you can see the upper crown is clear of the bars.

The new Rebas have the same lowers as SIDs now so very close in the weight department.

The World Cup CSU saves 110g, although that’s offset in part by the XX damper, and the heavy expander used.

Still the lightest 29″ Reba is 1662g, the lightest SID is 1485g, so nearly 200g, not exactly very close. But the XX WC is a far more expensive fork. Like for like there’s less in it agreed.

For comparison the lightest Lefty is ~1150g (PBR Carbon, shortest length) plus ~80g for an EP or MCFK steerer. Not cheap, but only DT Swiss or Magura (plus German A-Kilo and Leaf perhaps) can come close to that weight but with very different characteristics.

Other downside of a Lefty is that it’s more faff to remove the front wheel as you have to undo the brake caliper.

That’s also true. Alchemy do a hub where the rotor stays attached in the caliper and just a hub shell minus rotor mounts is fitted to the spindle. You then just have a 5mm bolt to undo and do up again. Not sure if that’s what the WC team use but they seem to change a wheel in the same time as a QR but I’ve never know the details of what they use to make it so quick. Could just be a ton of practise! 😀