I’m tempted by a Sonder Evol but fancy a little more travel up front, maybe 170 over the standard 150.
Has anyone tried a bigger fork on one and did it mess the handling up much?
Ta
IIRC adding 20mm travel to the fork slackens the head angle by 1 degree. But it'll also shorten the reach and raise the front end. So it may be a bit more wandery out front on climbs.
It'll highly likely void the warranty, whatever it does to the handling. I would email them and ask about it.
That’s quite a big increase in travel - if you want that why not just go for a bigger bike to start with? On a similar price level (I think) something like a Bird AM9 is rated for a 170mm fork.
I predict it'll handle like a sack of shit.
That opinion is based on me recently putting a 170mm fork on a 140mm bike - as I didn't have the airshaft to shorten it.
It still went fast but cornering was badly compromised.
I haven't tried a longer fork on mine than 150mm. However, I find my XL at least, has a low front end. I need a few spacers and a big rise bar to get a comfy fit. So a longer fork with a flatter bar shouldn't mess up the stack at least. As above 20mm is 1° slacker so will take the HA to 64. For steep riding it will probably be fine, warranty excluded.
Years ago I ran a 150mm fork on a 100mm Kona Dawg, handled like sh!t but I didn't die.
I’m tempted to try a 160mm on the front of mine. Stock HA is 65 degrees so it’s not going to make it unmanageably slack