The bottom line is that a rigid fork on a low end bike means more profit for the manufacturers, **** all to do with anything else.
[url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7021/6595424777_f4b630cca2_o.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocketdog/6595424777/ ]Fully Rigid Woodpile[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/rocketdog/ ]rOcKeTdOgUk[/url], on flickr
I used the above at a trail centre yesterday, it was great fun, really enjoyed it, i've never ridden a trail centre rigid before, I didn't miss the sus forks, however..i would have been faster with them
Oh, yes amedias i'm an idiot, but an out there riding a bike rather than judging one 8)
i will be fitting a rigid salsa cromo fork/or equivalent to my duster sometime next year (as i remember the old days of riding fully rigid 😉
Jeez, it always ends up with a bit of hating on this forum! Answering the op, cheap sus forks weigh twice as much, but offer little to no gain over a rigid fork, waste of time.
I have an alpine 160 which I can use for really rough days, but have just gone down the rigid with a big front tyre route and I'm really enjoying it. Local trails become new and exciting, then I can swap the wheels and use it to commute. I fully intend to use it for some bigger days out, maybe not the fastest, but still plenty fun!
having recently used several low end hire bikes with cheap Suntour forks fitted to them I can certainly say that a much lighter and rigid fork would vastly improve the performace of the bike. Cheap forks are heavy, do not move through the travel properly and make an otherwise decent bike quite cumbersome.
Kev
Oh, yes amedias i'm an idiot, but an out there riding a bike rather than judging one
damn you and your not having to be at work!
I have a week off next week, I'll be riding (my rigid) bike every day so I can build up some Karma points for the evenings job of being an Internet Judgementalist...
FunkyDunc - MemberThe bottom line is that a rigid fork on a low end bike means more profit for the manufacturers, **** all to do with anything else.
If the rest of the spec is identical, you're right. But that's not likely to be the case.
