I’ve got a Giant Trance X (bottom of the range one) with some basic Rockshox 120mm forks. They work ok, but aren’t great, and weigh a ton.

I’d like the option of a bit more travel – 140 or 150mm at times, but without losing the climbing ability or affecting the handling at present.

Do travel adjust forks work? Any recommendations?

Yep, they work- to various degrees of workiness anyway. Some like TALAS and the Magura thing basically give you a “climbing mode” where the fork doesn’t really work as well as it does at full (TALAS is a bit compromised all the time compared to a Float, which is a bit off on such an expensive part).

Rockshox do genuinely travel adjustable forks, a u-turn Rev wound down to 120mm works exactly as a 120mm fork should, and likewise at 150mm. But that performance advantage and the full adjustability apparently isn’t enough to outweigh the fact that it takes about 4 seconds to adjust 😉 They’re using a 2-step one now which I don’t know much about.

U-turn Revelation Team would be perfect for you but that’d be a used buy.

All of my forks have travel adjust in one form or another – either Rosckshox’s U Turn or Magura’s travel thingy. I find the U-Turn system to be excellent, the extra time spent winding the dial is no bother at all as it’s reliable and easy to use.

The Magura system attached to my Wotan is a little fragile – the bar adjuster always breaks so it’s been replaced with a KS lever which is far more durable and has the right leverage. The fork needs regular inverting to ensure that lube flows down to the mechanism otherwise it gets very stiff and refuses to reset to full travel. As an on the go solution, it’s no better than U-Turn as you still have to stop the bike and either weight or unweight the front end. Extending takes a few seconds anyway, so it’s not as if you can pop a wheelie and reset – unless you’re awesome at wheelies. Which I’m not.

Rockshox DPC works very well on the fly. Flip the switch and compress the fork slightly and it pops up/sticks down. Available as 110-140 or 120-150mm. The air spring equivalent doesn’t seem very reliable though.

I’ve got 140-110 Talas on my Soul, I run it at 110 most of the time and it’s brilliant at that, but the 140 is nice to have on long, bumpy downs or steep stuff, it gives me that little bit more margin to get away with things.

On the other hand I also run a 150-120 Talas fork on a 140mm FS bike, and to be honest it would be fine just with 150, running them at 120 lowers the BB so much that I end up walloping the pedals off rocks all the time. So it depends on the bike.

The actual travel adjusty bit in Talas forks works really well, it’s very fast, you just flip the switch, bounce the fork and it slides up or down straight off. And you can do it whilst riding, contrary to what the manual says.

They work very well at exactly what you are doing, ie messing about with the design intent. You can wind them down so the bike handles as it should or go to the max for better downhill performance at the expense of climbing.

I’ve got a U-turn at the moment and a Magura Phaon before that. Both are bit awkward to wind fully, especially with cold, wet hands but they work and have been reliable.

Had two sets of U-Turn coils, Lyrik and a Recon and they work/ed perfectly. Had an older revelation Air U-Turn too and that never failed, even with a pounding in the alps.

A mate has the dual position Rev, it’s only failed once in the few years he’s had it and even then it was down to lack of maintenance.

They stop the front wandering on climbs by helping you get a bit more weight over the bars. I don’t use them all the time but winding down the 160 to a 130 makes a big difference on rocky accents.

I’ve got a 140 TALAS on my Stumpjumper and use it every now and again. Mainly on steep climbs; whether on or off-road. I find it helpful, but could cope without it.

Northwind – Member
Some like TALAS and the Magura thing basically give you a “climbing mode” where the fork doesn’t really work as well as it does at full (TALAS is a bit compromised all the time compared to a Float, which is a bit off on such an expensive part).

I thought the whole point of TALAS was that it doesn’t alter the fork performance in different travel heights? So fork performance isn’t compromised depending on travel used??

Talas suffers a lot more stiction than Floats. I’ve just converted my Talas to Floats for this very reason and the difference is quite marked. Less to go wrong too.

I’ve got a set of 2010 U-turn RS Revs and totally love them I tried to replace them with something new and shiney but couldn’t find anything with the same level of adjustment that wasn’t at a ridiculous price.

They’ve been pretty reliable, only giving me a bit of bother this year but turned out to be something quite simple and cheap to fix (thanks Loco)

I briefly tried a set of Sektor Dual Positions when demoing a bike and found them very divey. Not sure if that was the basic damping on them or a side effect of the dual position system?

Travel adjust is a crutch for poor bike design… or a faffage device for a rider to use to explain why they could do something better if only they had remembered to change something after the last climb/descent 😉

I don’t see the point other than to find the sweet suspenson travel length for a given frame. I’ve tried changing fork length form climb to descend but it didn’t work for me; too annoying as to whether I had it right and if the climb/descent was worth the effort, or how the bike would ride for the next bit of trail. Often we blame the tools but more likely the skills of the rider are at fault. Running a longer fork for extra descending prowess sounds like a good thing but the extra bottom bracket height and slacker seat angle tend to counter-act the benefit of the slacker head angle (IMHO/IMHE) etc. Or increased pedal strikes on techy climbs if you shorten the forks. 10/20mm might be acceptable but the differences I feel in Talas etc ruin the ride the rest of the time for me. Usually the bike designers know what they are doing and have specified the a near optimum fork length for the frame… faff with this at your peril.

As many have said, I’d go for some U turn Revalations which get wound up and down all the time, as the front of my Intense wanders all over the shop on climbs if I don’t. They’re pretty bomb-proof. Just service every once in a while

I run my talas forks in their shortest setting all the time and they’re fine. Saved me having to buy a new fork when I went from 140mm frame to 100mm frame. I also agree with the others that have said that on the fly adjustments feel a bit unnecessary if everything’s set up right in the1st place?

I use a 150mm dual position RCT3 Rev which mostly remains at full length apart from the boring bits when I flick a switch, bounce the fork and have it at 120mm. I don’t use it much but it’s great and much easier to use than U-Turn.

I had a 140mm U-Turn Pike on a Trance which stayed 140 until I got to a fire road/other boring climb. You have more adjustability (a click=3mm I think) so can just wind a bit here or there. The Trance was more fun with more fork on the descents, I wouldn’t exceed 140 on it myself though!

It’s not for everyone, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. As the Trance will have a “right” place in your opinion I’d say go for a longer fork with adjustability. You may like 130mm but appreciate the extra stiffness of a bigger fork.

I don’t know about Fox forks, but you could try and find a 140mm U-Turn dual air Pike 454 (beefy+stiff) or Revelation (light+stiff) with a 15/20mm Maxle and it should save weight but add some security to the front wheel. If you didn’t know about Pike numbers, they correspond with the spec. The higher the number the better with 454 being the top end.

The current dual position style probably won’t suit as it’s only 2 options.

Although not travel adjust the RCT3 function gives you 3 levels of compression damping (open, platform and locked) which is like having a half lockout. If I was more XC I’d probably use this more, however I rarely do. It’s clever but too much IMHO. I imagine the Fox terralogic thing is much the same.

Lastly, the way the fork works means more than the amount of travel. Dual air is like having a collection of forks which you can swap in minutes by changing the air pressure of the 2 chambers, but you need to read (or ask here) to understand it a bit. Solo air is adjustable of course, but the way in which it responds to high and low speed compression cannot be tweaked as such.