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Upside down forks

48 posts & 31 voices | Started 9 months ago by joolsburger | Latest reply from scaredypants

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mboy - Member

I'm in two minds on the Maverick fork flex issue.
I've owned a set of DUC32 for 6 years now and initially I found the flex a bit annoying. Tufty grass would seem to drag the wheel sideways and for a while I found the take off from jumps to be a little less confidence inspiring.

It's all in the mind, the fact that Maverick forks are more easily twisted than a conventional fork is neither here nor there, you never really experience any twisting forces on a fork in use.

They flex a lot less than other forks in the fore/aft plane, so maybe that helps even things up.

This is one of the major advantages of the upside down design. For any doubters, just try riding a Maverick DUC or even an SC and you'll see what I mean. The fore/aft flex is far less than with a conventional fork.

The biggest disadvantage with the upside down fork is that in order to eliminate enough of the twisting they can experience (despite it not really mattering, people are sceptical though), you need an axle much bigger than the current 20mm standard to make the connection between the lowers stiff enough. Mavericks 24mm axle is as big as you can go with a conventional 6 bolt rotor, and it requires a proprietary hub. It is twice as stiff as a 20mm axle though. Bump that up to 30mm with a proprietary hub and rotor and the stifness would be easily there with a conventional fork in terms of twisting. But this is the problem, you'd need a load of new standards (costs money to develop, make and store) and it puts the public off. I for one get annoyed with every new headset standard for the sake of it, and got annoyed by Fox/Shimano developing the 15mm front axle (why? 20mm is fine for RWU forks!). It's not worth the time/effort/expense for the big fork manufacturers to bother doing in bulk, when a conventional fork works well enough to all intents and purposes. Yet...

Give it another 10 years or so and I predict we'll see more USD forks in the mainstream, they took a long time to properly take off on motorbikes afterall, but they're now standard except for on real cheap bikes.

Posted 9 months ago #
Militant_biker - Member

you never really experience any twisting forces on a fork in use.
I'm not so sure - but with no real knowledge to back it up. What about hitting edges which aren't perpendicular to the line of travel? Would they not work to push the wheel sideways, and therefore twist the fork?

Posted 9 months ago #
AlexSimon - Member

I can understand the argument that "you never really experience any twisting forces on a fork in use." as when you do the 'between the knees' test, everyone puts loads more force into the bars than you ever do on the trail - steering force is actually pretty tame.

But what I really need to do is to borrow a current bike and compare. I haven't ridden anyone else's bikes for a while now (probably 4 years) due to not wanting to get tempted (no money).

Posted 9 months ago #
julianwilson - Member

Alexsimon, if you borrow a bike with a maverick, see if you can get some from someon same weight as you: they are very fiddle-with-able and have different negative spring and damping oil weights for different size folk, just chainging air pressure will not make it feel as good as it could be for you if it was set up for someone significantly heavier or lighter than you.

SC32's often come up pretty cheap on classifieds. Mrs j has one and she loves them.

Posted 9 months ago #
compositepro - Member

A firm I used to work at bitd created one of the first upside down forks just after rockshox were making an appearance and they had an alloy disc brake rotor on em they were plenty stiff enough in fact I think I still have the crown and uppers somewhere

Bugger didn't see that someone had posted the mc man above.

Posted 9 months ago #
singlespeedstu - Member

It's all in the mind, the fact that Maverick forks are more easily twisted than a conventional fork is neither here nor there, you never really experience any twisting forces on a fork in use.

You might not but I did on the single crown Shiver I had. Do you never ride anywhere where there's ruts?

The Shiver was terrible in any kind of rut.

Posted 9 months ago #
simons_nicolai-uk - Member

I saw a post from Marzocchi USA on PinkBike where they said they were working on reintroducing the Shiver...

Posted 9 months ago #
mboy - Member

Single Crown Shivers aside Stu... Will agree with you on that one! I had a set briefly, not for long though...

You'd agree the Maverick to be much better in this respect I assume?

Posted 9 months ago #
jackthedog - Member

Just to add to the general flex debate, back in our DH days I once swapped bikes with my mate on a favourite section of trail a few years ago. He was running some spindly twin crown Marzocchi things, and when I hit some off camber stuff that I knew like the back of my hand, the fork flex - as much as this sounds like pure hyperbole - actually threw me off line and I fell off.

I weighted the front end and turned the bars and the wheel didn't go with them.

That was in about 2002. In fact my mate still has the bike, and to this day we'll nip down his cellar occasionally and watch as the wheel slowly turns left to right, steadily catching up with all the steering inputs asked of it nearly a decade ago.

That last sentence isn't true. The rest was. I've had 30 year old Land Rovers with tighter steering than that bloody thing.

Has to be said though - at the time it never held him back. He is and always was faster than I, so it's really all in the mind. You can accommodate extra flex pretty quickly I reckon.

Posted 9 months ago #
singlespeedstu - Member

mboy.

Never tried one for long enough. Had a quick go one one that creaked and groaned on every bump so wasn't very keen on trying it for longer.
I have seen Maveric forks where the dropout gripper thing has let the wheel move under heavy braking though. In my view not very confidence inspiring.

Posted 9 months ago #
tollah - Member

Never tried one for long enough. Had a quick go one one that creaked and groaned on every bump so wasn't very keen on trying it for longer.

they desperately needed a service by the time 18stone of you jumped on them

Posted 9 months ago #
GW - Member

The Shiver was terrible in any kind of rut.
QFT

anyone who says otherwise simply doesn't ride rutted terrain.

Posted 9 months ago #
scaredypants - Member

The Shiver was terrible in any kind of rut.
QFT
anyone who says otherwise simply doesn't ride rutted terrain.

I had a Shiver sc (still in the garage). Didn't find it terrible at all, and it was the older, longer travel one.

(I can also sleep on mattresses with a pea underneath )

Posted 9 months ago #