I'm looking at stiffening up the front of my Orange 5 a bit and have ordered a Thomson X4 stem to replace the Orange Stalk. Am wondering about replacing the bars with Easton EA70's (I don't want carbon as I tend to fall off a bit too much !).
Any opinions on whether this is worth the £50 or so it'll cost ?
Ta
EA50's for half the price?
I always liked the shape of Orange Supercross bars - see how you get on with the stem first.
Can't say I notice much flex in the OS Stalk+ and Supercross+ bars on the ST4.
what fork?
Fox 32RLC - 'tis an 08, so standard QR version
i'd look at that before the bar and stem. get the 15 lowers?
I thought about that but it's a pretty expensive option compared with stem/bars.
matt - yeah, I like the shape of them too, and don't think there will be much between them and the Easton in stiffness, reckon I'll see if the stem makes much difference firt...
Doesn't make a huge amount of difference with Q/R forks, but it is a start.
EA50's are just as good as 70's.
20mm lowers & bolt thru Pro2 hub will make one hell of a difference.
I use EA70's on all my bikes, i reckon they are as close to the magic:- Strong. Light. Cheap. As you can get.
I've just put '09 15QR Vanillas on my '08 Five (Floats popped their seals, will be resurrected on the SS). Trust me, you don't want to be looking at the bar and stem - it was the forks all along.
The Orange kit is pretty good, functional and reasonable weight. I put a Truvativ Holzfeller bar and stem (I wanted wider and shorter cockpit) which are much stiffer than most things out there and it was still the forks that noticed. I'd say live with it and then get the lowers done come service time.
Interesting that you should say that, a recent mag review of the 09 Orange 5 with QR15, commented that the forks were not noticeably any stiffer than the 07 9mmQR equipped Foxs fitted to another O5.
el_diablo - Member
Interesting that you should say that, a recent mag review of the 09 Orange 5 with QR15, commented that the forks were not
...I read that too and nearly posted it up...... -)
I've some EA50's if you are interested not sure of rise but O/S
In theory heavier stuff should generally be stiffer
boobs - thanks but I'll go with the stem in the first instance and think about the bars
Interesting that you should say that, a recent mag review of the 09 Orange 5 with QR15, commented that the forks were not noticeably any stiffer than the 07 9mmQR equipped Foxs fitted to another O5.
I beg to differ - ok I've moved to Vanillas so it's not a direct comparison. However, with my old floats, if you did the "check for headset play" test you could really feel the float fork bending around. The Vanilla is completely void of this but I tried the same headset test in the shop on a 15QR float and that didn't suffer either.
Also, MBR were never that aware of the flex in the 9mm QR floats anyway (that quote is from MBR I believe) - whereas WMB slated the float for it - what you read into that is up to you of course.
I never noticed it at first but as I got faster and more acquainted it did show up a bit but could be masked by fatter front tyres.
If you're worried about the cost, I've just picked up some new EA70s for £35 on ebay- more available, low or mid rise- seller is Absolute Cycles.
Hi Ian
I have EA70's on mine got them from Merlin
http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/?fn=product&productId=91&categoryId=74
Thought the same as you about carbon.
Dave
Wonder when (if?) a bike mag will ever test (i.e. clamp, big weight, accurately measure deflection) a set of 9mm QR and 15mm axle Fox forks (or any others for that matter)?
Be interesting* to see if a vaguely scientific test showed a marked increase in stiffness.
(*: this might be a stretching the definition of interesting).
surely some german mag has done that by now? id love to see that sort of thing done more often though, yes