As per title really. Can you get awat with a 160mm (20% sagged) fork on the descents?

I've got 140 mm foxs on mine, its a bit wandery on the climbs, but I dont give a damn about that.. If I had the money some 160 fox 36's would be on there pronto.

Well its a two step Lyrik so 115 for the climb. What size frame is yours?

Size 14 inch, I'm 5ft5 with stumps for arms and legs.see bike image above

Fox 36 van r 160mm travel on a standard 456 and after this weekend on a 456 SS as well. Will see how it fairs on the ss but not as slack as I'd like on the standard 456.

Perfik, ta guys. Looks like its the 456 this weekend 😀

fox 36 work great.

150mm talas 36's for me, but its happier now with 140mm Thors

Why would you want to run long travel forks on a hardtail? Just doesn't make sense to me and suggests you should stick to / buy a full susser.

Why would you want to run long travel forks on a hardtail? Just doesn't make sense to me and suggests you should stick to / buy a full susser.

Thanks for the opinion but you're wrong.

I guess the simple answer to why I'd want to put long forks on a HT is because it's fun.

My FS is fun too.

Am I? What makes you think that you need such long travel forks on a hardtail? Fully compressed, the head angle is going to be very different to fully extended and the unsuspended back end has to follow anyway.

How is it more fun than running a slightly shorter travel fork that would most likely make something like a 456 handle better? Because you like your bikes to be unstable?

And so we have the 456. Created sort of from a desire to have something to be a hooligan on, still wanting it to be rideable uphill – that was really important for me. So when I cleaned the climb up Long Causeway from the gate to the top, feet up, I knew we’d got something with this one.

Geometry is funny. We started backwards with this one. I knew from our Compo frame that front end handling had much more to do with weight distribution than the head angle. And that you could make a bike do fun things without becoming a handful. So we did what you’re not meant to do and designed it from what we’d told people not to do – put a long fork on a standard inbred – and then moved the seat angle so that you were sat in the right place to keep the front wheel on the ground
on the steep stuff. I like that too. You can ride this thing sat square in the saddle up lots of stuff you have to shufty forwards on, on other bikes.

Stopadoodledoo you clearly are not experienced in the ways of the "LTHT" 😉

Nixons @ 145 on mine and it is damn near perfect, up and down 😀

What makes you think that you need want such long travel forks on a hardtail?

Experience.

I have two HTs. One is quite old, previously had 80mm forks on and now sports either rigid forks or 100mm depending on what I fancy. The other (456) has had 130mm Revs, 110-140mm Pikes and is now sporting 120-160mm 55s. So I'm used to a variety of fork lengths on a couple of bikes. With the 55 on it is anything but unstable. I know because I've ridden it.

In fact I'll probably end up putting the Pikes back on but that's because my FS works better with the 55s than the Pikes.

No, and I don't want to be as it's a load of bollocks.

Were hardtail frames made to take longer forks because it was the next logical step, or because there was enough fools out there wanting to run silly big forks in them? Funny how, apart from Orange's short-lived Sub Zero, none of the big bike manufacturers have gone down the long travel fork hardtail route, isn't it?

you are clearly mad!

Funny how, apart from Orange's short-lived Sub Zero, none of the big bike manufacturers have gone down the long travel fork hardtail route, isn't it?

roffle

I should add that I have ran a hardtail with forks that had too much travel. In a moment of madness a few years ago, we all decided it would be great to take our hardtails out to Morzine as well as the big bikes (we were obviously playing the "Look how hardcore we are" game). So, I wound the Pikes on my 24Seven out from their usual 110mm to 140mm to slacken the head angle.

I learned two things:
1. It rode much nicer with the forks wound down
2. Hardtails are shit in the Alps.

Three things actually, come to think of it:
3. That BikeFax book is shit. Col De Coux is "Astounding singletrack"? No it bloody isn't; it's muddy doubletrack from top to bottom and not worth any of the effort to get up there. Bikefux, more like!

In reply to the above link, I think that you will find the majority of bikes shown are from the same group of small manufacturers; also, how many are really designed with 160mm forks in mind?

Oh, and that Evil looks ridiculous and I would wager that it rides like a bag of shit and was built like that to prove some sort of misguided point by some 'dude'.

because Giant, Specialized and GT are all smallfry niche brands 😆

best sell my bike then

:gutted:

Which Giant, Specialized and GT hardtails are built around a 160mm fork?

stopa, you really are going to sack off the Chameleon? 🙁

No, it's not going anywhere (literally, as it's just a frame and seatpost now). Definitely not going to slap some 36's in the bastard though.

stopa do you use bar ends? 😀

Are you assuming that because I think it is stupid to ride a hardtail with 160mm forks on, that I am a flat-back XCer?

no, not at all 😉

do you have a bp monitor?

I don't even know what one of those is. However, in the below photo, the forks on my hardtail were set to 110mm. Would you have this on your 160mm BEAST?

yeah but why not? of course I'd be flucking the gnar over that extreme rad death hole, I'd probably also mix it up with non matching shoelaces and one white/sequined glove, perhaps you would have too if you'd had an extra 70mm? The sad thing is I fear we'll never know 😀

However, in the above photo, the forks on my hardtail were set to 110mm

Wow.

Yes well Im down two one bike with a spare frame to swap between. Thankfully I have soo much experience building bikes now that it doesnt take me long nowadays to 'select' which steed 😉 I want to go out on 🙄

with regards to the photos looks a lil smaller than some rough triples / gaps i've seen people make on 100mm travel 4x bikes..

Exactly Duncan, posted it to show just that; don't need massive forks on a hardtail.

Gary could do that jump on his fancy road bike

I don't recall anyone saying you NEED long travel forks on a hardtail, just as you don't need anything like the amount of suspension travel available on most full sussers. After all how many jump bikes do you see with anything over 140mm. Long travel forks on a hardtail are in my opinion in their element pointing downwards over rough stuff at speed "riding the fork" as it were. Of course you don't need anything more than 110mm if you're riding on dry, hard packed soil. Just saying like 😉

🙂

This woman's willy is considerably larger even than yours. 😀

Is that your wedding photo? Wife's a looker, isn't she?

Is that your wedding photo?

nice comeback

Stopadoodledoo – Member

I learned two things:

1. It rode much nicer with the forks wound down
2. Hardtails are shit in the Alps.

as to 1., perhaps the frame wasn't designed to be ridden with 140mm forks? as for your second finding i sentence you to being WRONG.

had both my 120mm(ish) HT and my beefy 160mm'd Alpine in the alps (not one week of lift-assisted riding, but living and working there). both have their place depending on what you are riding. on the flowy stuff i could keep up with local lads on FS using the 120mm HT, but when it got techy, rocky, steeper or a combo of all three then they lost me. on the Alpine i can keep up with – and occasionally out-run – FS on the same bits.

the HT requires less faffing. and i don't like the jacking, bob and floaty feeling you get with FS.

ride a LT-HT with a big fork well and you don't need FS. all suspension is afterall is a get-out clause.