I bought these 140mm Fox Float RLC forks from Merlin for my new Five build

http://www.merlincycles.com/bike-shop/fox-32-float-140-fit-rlc-15mm-15-tapered-steerer.html

I built the bike up (cut the steerer), took it for its first ride yesterday and all seemed good. Then I measured the exposed stanchion length this morning and its 150mm !

I’m not sure that I’m overly bothered as it felt just fine, but a couple of questions spring to mind.

Where do I stand with Merlin? I’m guessing that I couldn’t send them back even if I wanted to as I’ve cut the steerer and ridden them, but I guess I should let them know that these forks appear to be 150 not 140.

Can the travel be reduced on these? As I say, I’m not sure I’d want to, but if its just a case of adding a spacer then I guess I could do that at the first oil change and see if I can tell the difference.

Perhaps they are 140mm and the remaining 10mm isn’t used – check the quoted atc length

Really? I though the travel was always just the amount of stanchion showing (without a rider on of course).

my fox’s have 10mm spare at the top fox float 32’s, let all the air out and fully compress the fork and check! 🙂

Yes, No and maybe…

My 150mm Sektors had about 160mm showing.

My Marz 155s have anywhere between 170 and 155 depending on how much I pump them up (something about the negative spring causes this i beleive)

My F100s have about 110 mm showing…

Well I’ll be blowed 😳 Just let all the air out and pushed the fork down until it hit the stop and there does indeed seem to be almost 10mm of stanchion still showing.

Thanks folks and sorry for wasting your time.

Think you will find a 5 can take 150mm fork anyway

http://www.orangebikes.co.uk/bikes/five_frame/

I have a 170mm fork on my 150mm frame and haven’t died yet

My 160 Lyriks were 180mm and my Fox 36’s are bang on 160! Nothing to worry about!

On another note, I bought 150 revs from Merlin and the stanchions measured about 135mm, wtf?!

My mates’ 32s on their Fives all show more than 140mm exposed stanchion, whereas my 150mm Revs show about 145mm! All our bikes ride great tho – just how we wanted them to. Yours should be fine.

The floats on my five have 150mm exposed stanchions, just got the ruler out 🙂
140mm quoted travel

I thought the same…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fork-travelnumpty-question

Turned out they were 140mm travel.

🙄

Great, so not only am I numpty, I’m not even a very original one. Just one who can’t use the search facility properly 😳

As I say, I wasn’t really worried about the 150mm length per se. It felt fine, which is all that matters, I know the Five is rated for up to 160mm and even though Orange say 140mm is optimal that doesn’t mean much when there is so much variability in A-C between different 140mm forks. But it’s nice to know that the forks are in fact what I thought they were and I’ve learnt something, which is always good.

Same here, 150mm showing on a set of 140mm coil sprung Sektors.