I ride mainly on country roads. I ride a mountain bike as it's nice and comfy and I like the option to explore off-road, bridleways and the like. I've got suspension forks (Rebas) because that's what proper mountain bikes are supposed to have, but I can't help thinking that when the sus. forks need replacing I might be better off going back to a rigid fork.

I've ridden On-One Superlights before and liked them and fancy the look of the Orange F8 but considering the prices of carbon forks (probably about half the price of a budget sus fork) I'd be foolish not to consider them. I'm a moderately heavy rider and although most of my riding is road based, the off-road stuff I do tends to be pretty rocky and I guess I'm a little nervous of carbon fibre. Most carbon forks these days don't seem to come with rider weight limitations but how robust are they. I suppose that longevity is a concern too, I guess that a steel fork will go on idefinately but will the bonding that holds the carbon stanchions to the crown and dropouts last well, and what about the carbon fibre itself?

The real plus of a carbon fork seems to be comfort but a decent steel fork isn't necessarily too brutish either, weight's also a plus but the difference between an On-One cromo. Superlight and an On-One carbon fork is only around 280g, so it's not massive.

If I do decide to go rigid and carbon fibre at that there now seems a huge range of similarly priced and (decals aside) fairly similar looking forks, £140 – £180 gives the option of carbon forks from On-One, Nukeproof, Element, Whyte, Pro-Lite and probably others. What would be a good choice where durability and longevity were prefered over light weight?

I've got nuke proof, which are fine. I've found that the flexing of the fork seems to make the brakes screech (I assume that's what causes it). Also, the crown race I use just pulls off, so easy to swap to bouncy forks in a few mins. Apparently (claimed on here), alot of the carbon forks come out of the same factory. This is my commuter bike used on unmade canalbank type stuff, I'm not sure I'd want to use them on anything more more than that.

I'd take my carbon on one over steel on ones any day of the week. I found them to be brilliant – comfortable and no issues thinking they're going to break on me

YMMV

Plum

I've found that the flexing of the fork seems to make the brakes screech (I assume that's what causes it).

I wonder if this is a function of QR movement in the dropout; it would be interesting to see if eg. a 15mm through-axle rigid fork (as promised by Mr Richards elsewhere on these fora) has the same problem.

Andy

(Also thinking about a rigid fork for a winter hack/commuter build)

I don't know, but it only happens when I have the carbon rigids on. Doesn't happen if I pump the brakes or use them briefly, happens if I apply pressure for more than a few secs, starts screaching like discs brakes normally do when they're wet.

I've got a set of Exotics that I pop into the Soul sometimes. Not too expensive- sub £100- and exactly the same as the far more expensive Nukeproofs except with a different logo on. Not just "same factory" but "same fork".

Not much else to say about them, as yet they haven't broken. I run them with a fairly big front tyre for more cushioning and they give me essentially a whole other bike just by swapping one component. Then I'm old, my first and second mtbs were full rigids. Well, the second one had a flexstem

another vote for an exotic carbon fork. I use mine for general XC mincing, few rocks/roots and small drop offs which i **** up a bit. Front heavy landing on a 1 foot drop off felt nice… mmhmm..Only weigh 144 pounds so not that much weight on it must be said.

For your riding id go carbon rigid, if you think its shit sell it on here. If you want true fit and forget steel rigid.

BA Nana, my front brake does that as well. I always assumed the brake dive with forks was what stopped it squeeling.