Hi all iv seen some threads recently, but being a bit confused I will put my own thread.
I have a trek 29er marlin ss with g2 heavy suntour forks.
I have just with out thinking brought some riged forks for it.
But
The a to c is 40mm shorter on the riged. Obviously not g2
Will it be ok or should I resell them and find some that are longer, the a to c on the suspenchon is 545mm
40mm is quite a lot but remember that your suspension forks A2C will be measured before sag is taken into account. That could be 20mm, leaving a 20mm differential.
As for G2... there seem to be conflicting views.
You might find that the handling is a bit more sharp, maybe twitchy, but you might not be bothered by that. If they have been bought 2nd hand and you can't take them back then just give them a try!
At some point in time, yes, you will 😉
My understanding of your a - c dilemma is that by reducing this distance, you effectively steepen both head and seat angles. Typically, IME, this creates, among other things, quicker handling/steering response, which in some cases makes a bike feel less stable at speed, twitchy and requires a more deft touch and body movements. Depends on how you like your bike to feel and respond to you and is a personal thing, despite what the media would sometimes have us believe as being good, bad or indifferent.
In your case, I would suspect that with rigid forks, you will need to re-learn how to ride your bike, for example, turning the bars too quickly to make a rapid turn or line choice, especially over rough ground, and with the body position you have become accustomed to assume, could cause the front wheel to tuck under. Basically a potential OTB's moment. Which, given a set of unfortunate circumstances, could indeed lead to some, possibly acute physical pain. Death cannot be discounted. 😉
With respect to the G2 aspect, again my understanding of this was to put a marketing line to what most designers aspire towards. IOW, the key dimensions and geometry are combined to provide a pre-determined requirement of how they want the bike to behave. G2 geometry might also include fork offset, which I'm fairly sure is the distance of the axle, or dropouts from the centerline through the forks, or the line created by the head angle. If that makes sense? Measure that or look it up, or ask and that certainly would help maintain the feel and balance of the bike if you also found some rigid forks with a similar a - c.
545mm seems quite long to me, but I'm more used to 425, 445 etc for 26" and 80 - 100mm travel forks.
I hope that helps.
Or, I may be incorrect on all of the above 😉
Probably, maybe, not really, but who cares, try it and find out.
Rock rigids! But not frigids!
I've ridden all sorts of bikes with various length forks on and it's always worth a try. Only bikes I ever couldn't sort the handling out was an original inbred with 130mm forks on (it was designed for 80mm up to 100). Great downhill but very floppy uphill. I had an Azonic Ds2 with 130 forks on which is a bit long again but it was so much fun to ride and a shorter stem helped a bit. I don't think 20mm will make it unridable.