[Closed] Long travel forks - what's the point??

If you can't see a benefit for your riding then there probably isn't one.

been riding 100mm forks on my main ride for the last 10 years, see no reason to go longer for UK riding, though Ive got a 6inch travel bike for occasional soirees in the alps..

cynic-al - I would like to think they would help me to cope with the DH type riding I am doing but then I think well if my 130mm forks cope with it is there value in 160mm. But I wonder if the 160mm will be a better tools for the jjob although I know its not about the bike.

Earl - why don't you use the 100mm in the alps? what does the 6incher give you that the 100m doesn't?

as cynic-al said....

bigger stanchions = stiffer fork = better tracking
more travel = slacker head angle = more control on steep stuff

It's one of those things - how do you know you need them without having them? The old "unconciously incompetent" - ie I don't know what I don't know...

Because they make bikes even more fun

sorted 🙂

bigger the fork the bigger the fun!

I kept bottoming out 100mm forks but only because I'm too heavy for the max psi in a Recon, not because I'm a hardcore downhill rider 😆 140mm on my Pikes feels about right to me. Having any more seems a bit excessive.

They let you ride faster, which is more fun. Simple as that.

If you're only riding easyish trails, you might be a bit non-plussed. Once you start riding steep and gnarly stuff, it'll make lots of sense - as much the slacker, more stable geometry as anything.

Just beacuse the 130's "cope" doesn't mean they're the "best" answer...

I rode 130mm forks for my first season out here (Marz AM2s on my Heckler). I got a set of Lyriks for my second season. All problems with finger cramp and forearm pump disappeared at the same time. The 2 things may or may not be related!

I had to think about this to give a coherent answer, it's best illustrated in this example. If you have 120mm forks, then you will have approx 120mm (4.72 inches) of travel, whereas if you have 160mm forks then you will have approx 160mm (6.3 inches) of travel. So in this case going from 120mm to 160 mm forks will give you an extra approx 40 mm (1.58 inches) of travel. Hope that helps. 😆

I would imagine that in many parts of the country, eg Notts (where I used to live, fairly flat with rides at Clipstone forest etc) you don't need much more than 80/100mm, if any at all. However here in West Yorkshire, and the Dark Peak where I ride mostly the more you've got the better. I have 150mm on my Pitch but would like more if I could afford some non DH weight forks.
I think round me if you're going to have boing you may as well have a lot of it. Or none at all, which I did ride for years.

found that 140mm coil forks are terrible through alpine switchbacks due to the geo change.

This is a troll thread; surely?

I think if I was going to have to choose one travel setting I would have to keep for all riding in the UK I would go for 130mm, but a good quality fork. Wouldn't be too much weight to drag around Lincolshire but would be useful in the Lakes or Peaks. I had some u-turn air revelations at 130mm and I thought they were ace, never phased with anything really but not a drag on longer flatter rides as they were reasonably light. Shame I had to sell them to get my new bike.

This is a troll thread; surely?

I don't think so, it's a reasonable question to ask I reckon.

Bushwacked, where do you ride mostly?

i found 80mm enoug last weekend at GT, was able to razz around at the same speed as 2 guys on 150mm FSs.

of course, my bike being a 29er made it all easy.

my other bike has had 130mm forks, long 130mm forks and now has 120mm forks. its great 🙂

Not sure there is really, i have 120-160 All mountain SLs on my chameleon and I hardly ever wind them out above 130. As said above the dive changes the geometry and feels sh*t.

If I was to change I woul prob go with something simple like a set of pikes.

I wish my penis was 30mm bigger

RH Sno2 - your SO said that last night 😉

I think 120 / 130mm is a good compromise fork length for XC, short enough to give good angles for climbing, but also long enough for a majority of downs.
I've only ever coveted longer forks on one downhill in the peak (cavedale...) but I'm sure I can clean it with a bit of practise!

Surely, it's more to do with the combination of frame/fork than just talking about the fork in isolation.

My old bike came as standard with Judy's that were set to 100mm travel, although I am not sure they were set-up particularly well.
While in Spain they blew all their oil and luckily Mark @ Ciclo Montana had a pair of 130mm Bombers he lent me. They were great going downhill as they slackened the bike nicely, but on anything even remotely uphill the bike became really difficult to ride without the front end lifting. The steering also became really slow & it felt like the front just didn't want to track round corners.
I replaced the Judy's with 85-115mm Reba's, which suited the bike pretty well.

On my current bike (new Stumpjumper), there's a 140mm Fox. If this had been fitted to the old bike, it would have been pretty unrideable, but on the bike it was designed for, it's great.
Likewise, a mate had 160mm Marzocchi's on his Coiler, which are fine. On his Inbred, I doubt they'd be much good.

No, its not a troll.

I've got a Soul at the moment and running Pace 130mm forks on it. Love it to pieces but I am starting to push and progress my riding to doing more jumping and tackling much steeper DH type trails so I've been looking at a BFe with 160mm forks (as some of you will have heard / seen recently).

But I was talking to someone yesterday about 160mm forks who said "its not about the bike", "why do you think you need 160mm" and "ride what you've got". I agree with this as I know I can ride that bike well over the terrain I ride but when asked why do I think I need 160mm forks I was slightly stumped. I suppose this is where the question comes from - moving from 130mm to 160mm - does it really improve things? will it make my riding more enjoyable? or am I just suckered into the marketing hype?

The idea of more dive is something I've not really thought about.

I put my 130 springs in for alpine duties, run 105 the rest of the time with no problems in Scotland. But I'm not hammering man-made DH tracks day in day out, just natural stuff and the odd trail centre.

I just found my enjoyment went down with the travel going up in the UK - rarely rode anything that tested 130 sufficiently to warrant more, I found that I was just taking bad lines and blowing through the 130 with poor choice rather than riding the section properly.

Bushwacker pop over to mine and take my 6" travel out for the day. You'll know why after riding it!

I have ridden DH courses on 140 forked HT and on a 160 FS.

naturally on a 160 FS you can let go more, not sure which was more fun though, the HT I think. Certainly the 160 FS has sat in the basement for the last 2 years where I've been hitting everything except the local forest on my 100-140 HT.

I expect a 160 HT would need quite a slack HA to deal with sag/diving and I certainly wouldn't chose that but that's somewhat personal as I prefer steeper HAs (iirc my evil is 71 deg@100 and 67/68@140. At 140 I find it too slack for "normal" trails)

On a hardtail, going from 130 to 160mm forks won't make a massive difference. Nice to have the extra in reserve, but it's probably not necessary IMO.

Of course though, when has MTBing been about what's necessary? Never I hope! It's about having fun... So in the same way your bike rode perfectly fine with an 80mm stem, but now steers quicker with a 60mm on, longer forks would just change the attitude somewhat. Whether that appeals or not only you can answer...

If you want a go on some 160mm fox 36's though, just give me a shout...

FWIW for the type of riding you're on about with this BFe of you get it, my personal choice would be something like a set of 140mm bolt through forks like Pikes or Revelations... If buying all brand new of course. But I'd really not worry top much one way or the other quite frankly.

If you find that during the course of a typical ride you are repeatedly bottoming out your fork, you may need more travel.

If you find that during the course of a typical ride you never bottom out your fork, you may be OK with less travel.

Assuming the fork is set up correctly that is.

Would it be worth getting something with adjustable travel (UTurn etc) so that you can try it at 150mm on the downs but leave it at 130mm for everyday riding? Best of both worlds?

Now, if the fork is bottoming out is tha because the fork spring is not set right? I wonder if you should even bottom out the forks if they are properly set up - leading to wonder if 130mm travel is actually just as good as 160mm.

if you had a head angle on a bike with 160mm forks that was the same as a bike with 130mm - what would the difference be if you rode the same terrain and only used the same proportion of travel on both forks as they were set up correctly? Surely there is no benefit of one over the other?

This really isn't a troll but me thinking aloud as I don't see there is any difference other than marketing hype

OP if you are DHing then I'd have thought 160mm may be worth it, I use 130 x adn I don't see the point of anything shorter uless you are racing, but longer can get bobby/heavy etc with no benefits for xc.

I'm going to keep my Soul for XC / all day ridings. I am after something that I can use on more DH type terrain but not sure I need anything other than what I;ve got.

All thsoe complaining about excess fork dive on big forks - wack up the low speed compression a bit!

The fork thing is a complete "need -vs- want" question. We all used to ride rigid bikes, 1.9" tyres, 150mm stems and 22" bars, and it was great. Sunday, I was riding the same trails I was riding 15 years ago on a 6" travel full sus with 28" bars, 2.3s and a 50mm stem, and it was ****ing awesome. Some people would say I was overbiked. I wasn't. I was riding at the limit of my ability to control that bike, same as I used to on the old Clockwork. Sure you can ride everything now on your current setup, so you don't "need" to change, but as you've found out by swapping the stem, "wanting" to change can provide a different experience, and it's quite often for the better.

I think your confusing the travel with their intended use.

The 160mm will be allround a burlier setup than a 130mm XC fork.

Set up correctly you should use the full travel on both forks, or the % of their travel, however the 160mm will give you a smoother ride over the same run, or maybe if the run isnt that hard leave you with extra for bigger hits, mistakes etc.

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

😮

need v want!

constant bottoming out usually means fork spring too soft
conventional wisdom is set the spring to the "at rest" sag (you on the bike, in the attack position) then bottoming out once or twice on a decent sized ride is about right, although non-linear spring rates can mess with that simple approach.

so, "correctly" set up 130 and 160mm forks would not deflect the same on the same trail, the 160 would be getting more travel and would sit further into the travel at rest. The effect of the same sagged "at rest" HA on 130 and 160mm forks would be a steeper HA under breaking or other heavy load for the 160, as it's got further to go.

Whether that is noticeable between 130 and 160 is perhaps questionable, but the same principle applies comparing 100 to 160 and there I can promise you the difference can be quite alarming!

Assuming the same frame, headangles will be ~ 1deg slacker with a 160mm fork, vs 130.

If they were the same static headangle, the bigger forks would be sketchier under full compression, which is not good.

You *should* be using full travel every time you ride. If not, you're overspring/damped. "Nasty clunk" style bottom out to be avaoided though.

found that 140mm coil forks are terrible through alpine switchbacks due to the geo change.

poor setup

Jon - thinking more of a hypothetical setup with same head angle with 160 and 130 - so 67.5 when both forks fitted (obviously two different frames as one frame would not have same head angle for two different length forks)

B

If they were the same static headangle, the bigger forks would be sketchier under full compression, which is not good.

Bluff, under full compression 160mm forks will be about the same length as the 130mm fully compressed, so it would be the same.

btw I am using full travel a fair bit on each ride (have one of those o-rings on my stantition which seems to spend most of its time at the top of the leg)

found that 140mm coil forks are terrible through alpine switchbacks due to the geo change.

poor setup

i disagree.

proper tight alpine switchbacks require steeper head angles, but with weight back. a shorter fork gives the steeper HA, but enables you to get weight back.

on steeper stuff the longer forks are nice, but for tight stuff, shorter forks are better imo. hence why i've gone back to 120mm from long 130s on the bike i use in the alps.

If they were the same static headangle, the bigger forks would be sketchier under full compression, which is not good.

Bluff, under full compression 160mm forks will be about the same length as the 130mm fully compressed, so it would be the same.

Lets assume a static (unsagged) head angle of, say, 68 degrees for arguments sake, then pluck an arbitray (and most likely wrong) "20mm=1 degree" relationship out of the air, this would mean at full compression the 160mm fork case would increase to a head angle of 76 degrees, whilst the 130mm fork case would increase to 74.5 degrees.

Of course, if you were swapping longer forks onto an existing frame the above would not apply. You would keep the same head angle at bottom-out, but change the static unsagged head angle.

I think...

JonEdwards - I disagree.
I don't think a long travel fork is any faster than a well set up 100mm fork on a hardtail except on straight rockgardens, and even then the shorter fork begs you to jump/pump your way through rather than plow so it's not always very much slower at all.
A low BB and low standover is far nicer on really really steep stuff than a long fork (infact a long fork can be way less stable).
plus on really really steep stuff, you tend to be so far off the back you won't ever use the full fork travel anyway.
forgetting about head angles entirely, the longer travel the fork the worse it'll be in tight turning situations.

If half the people that run long travel forks on hardtails actually needed them they'd be running dual ply tyres and DH tubes too.