Forum menu
The reasons for having them are obvious, and have already been listed but basically come down to:
-Cost.
-Weight.
-Reliability
-Maintenance
TBH if we can get to page 2 without these rather basic points penetrating then I doubt there’s much hope they’ll ever stick...
I own both a nice simple rigid SS winter MTB (which is seeing more and more use these days) and more complicated bikes that use “Modern Tech”... Both types of bike have their uses in the right context.
P.S. Good Intermediate level Trolling OP – 6/10
Ex "hard core" Roadie here.. I likes me bikes light, stiff, fast, nailed, ard, tight, neat, lean.
29erSS rigid's 4 Me, MWAxxx
Oh, I sport a decent well trimmed stubble, so not quite beardy, but it'll do yay?
I have a single speed with 120mm forks and I don't have a beard...
They are coil recons so servicing is really simple, drop the lowers and that's it. I prefer the extra control they give in the rough.
I can see the appeal of rigids, but for me it's a step too far, next we'll be fitting V brakes because they are lighter and make riding more of a challenge 😛
I have a beard and I first started riding on bikes with no suspension
It was fun, in the sense that when I look back it taught me lots about picking a line, riding technical stuff and knowing how a bike rolls
Now I'm significantly older, its much less fun. A long-travel HT was good for a few years but at the minute I prefer a full sus with lots of travel. nowt wrong with rigid but its more for the resort bikers than those who want to go au naturel
I've got a long beard and have never, ever ridden a full suspension bicycle let alone owned such a thing (nor a full carbon bicycle come to that). Despite the beard (and a habit of riding in sandals) I do however own [i]one[/i] bicycle with suspension forks. It's been out perhaps six times in twelve months, three of which were on a BMX track.
I much prefer my drop-barred, fully rigid, SS 29er tho' ...
I just don't like them, the front-end doesn't feel like it's properly connected, but, I will go so far as to accept that they make it faster to go down/through things - although I suffer from the clearly related phenomena of that being the only bike that I fall off of every time it goes out.
In keeping, I also drive a 20 year old diesel LWB LR , and have not had a television receiver for some 15 years now.
😛
it's all about maintanance or lack of it re. rigid.
i ride 29er (slowly) so front susp. isnt so important.
at what point do you service the forks yourself and when do they get a 'proper' service???
it's all too ambigious for me and too easy to wreck.
until they're made idiot proof ( or made of graphene) then i'll pass.
Somafunk, I need your Golf mate. Now, if not sooner. 🙂
Not sure why maintenance is a consideration tbh, suspension forks are very low maintenance and mostly simple to look after. If you can pour a shot of whisky and wipe your bum, you can do a rockshox lowers service, and it costs less too. Lower maintenance than chains.
[img] 
[/img]
But ignoring the 'No Cycles' bit..
😀
Is she the Niche whore then ? 😆
somafunk - Member
[s]The old-tech that handles like a puppy on wet lino or the comfortable, controllable version?[/s]
I'll fix the above statement for you, the amended version is below[s]The old-tech that handles sweetly if you are an experienced rider with knowledge of how to pick lines and commit to sections with the confidence in your riding ability to control the bike or the comfortable armchair that you just jump on and point downhill whilst merely hanging on as the suspension takes the edge off the jumps and drops that you didn't realise were there but so what - you hooned that hill man! - that was sick!, and ruled that mahoosive drop, rad to N+1 dudez!
Or what would you rather have?, a good analogy and i know for sure what one is the more involving (fun) to drive- runs rings round the lardy comfortable/controllable version as well
194bhp as it stands now and less than 1000kg, no driver aids of any description - practically a rigid steel singlespeed.
VS
207bhp and 1378kg - every driver aid possible apart from the optional arse-wipe function - practicall an all singing all dancing multi use all day epic enduro trail riding carbon machine....but how much fun is it to drive?....zzzzzzz[/s]
Bullshit Bingo
Couldn't decide either way so put some Girvin's on my steel SS:
[img] 
[/img]
Look like suspension, ride like rigids.
Proper Old Skool!! 😀
PAH that's not old school...this is older school.
[img] 
[/img]
I had a flex stem on my rock hopper. Used to get sore finger joints after a ride and it helped a lot.
20 years later I have a Swift with rigid forks and don't have any finger problems. Probably due to not running my tyres at 50 psi!
I have ridden my bike on trails with the forks locked out before, and been fine. I totally get rigid forks if you want a bike that's super light, or for a minimal maintenance singlespeed backup bike, etc. Also very much agree that good rigid forks will be far better than budget suspension ones.
Bullshit Bingo
Cheers alex222, luv ya, Yah big bouncy orangey freakbike rider.
peterpoddy : Cheers peter, i do love my VW's, I'd prob sell it for £5.5k if you like 😉 , it was off the road from april 2011 to april 2012 as i sunk over £4500 at it doing a complete suspension/running gear/engine rebuild/extensive welding along with countless hrs of my life that i'll never get back, got two A4 folders full of receipts along with a box full of receipts going back to the original PDI inspection sheet back in march 1984. It was either going to be scrapped due to extensive chassis rust/holes and general neglect by the previous owner or i needed to bite the bullet and waste a fortune on it - i decided to waste a fortune on it but as long i look after it the value can only increase (that's what i tell myself anyway) 😀
You can have another couple of pics,
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
Needs a new front valence but i can't find an original one in this country, currently emailing vw dealerships and VW nuts in Europe in the hope one will turn up somewhere.
Nice golfs
Mine has (bike that is) rigid carbons 'cause they cost so much I can't afford some suspension ones, that makes sense doesnt it?
Let's do the car analogy thing then. Best thing I've ever driven, by a country mile, is a 2-stroke kart.
No suspension (bar tyres), no gears, arse an inch off the ground, unforgiving of mistakes... but constantly treading the line between grinning and fear, totally in touch with the ground moving underneath you, totally devoid of having to think about things like heel-and-toe or gears. Just drive by - literally - the seat of your pants, and get back everything you put in.
Rigid forks: same thing.
And phooey to putting suspension on for rocks. There's no greater satisfaction for egotistical and petty ****s like me than overtaking full sussers down a Morzine rock garden 🙂 (Not that I could do it these days.)
I have a beard. I have a creative job in a brewery. I can sometimes be found drinking out of a tin mug whilst plunking on a ukulele. I also have rigid forks. They are not part of a hipster or lifestyle build. They do fall on the gnar side of things being cromoto grandes....HOWEVER they are totally fit for purpose on my dialled bikes lovehate MTB/bmx and, in that "enjoying the simplicity of simple things" state of mind are perfect. I also have a set of fox float 36r (don't ask) on my cotic soul. Perfect for when "enjoying the simplicity of difficult things".(rocks gardens, roots etc).
RIGID - "enjoying the simplicity of simple things"
SUSPENSION - "enjoying the simplicity of difficult things"
I think 😕
For the capability... This chap beat 3/4s of the field in the 2012 endurance downhill race at fort william:
[img] 
[/img]
I took 8 inches of skill compensator and beat him by one place 
Loving the Golf. I had a 16v big bumper model. Bought an old 8v to restore but never had the time. 🙁
Re rigid forks...I'm old enough to know what works for me.
what's with the sudden flood of people using rigid forks on their mountain bikes?
Why the perceived 'flood'? I think it's because:
* some people are trying 29ers and liking them
* some people are trying single speeding, perhaps due to a combo if it working well with a 29er and because of the dreadful trail conditions for 10 months or so now
Put that combination together and a rigid fork makes sense, to try at least. Also some framesets and full builds come with them anyway.
In my view, rigid forks belong on road bikes. I wouldn't ride a fully-rigid MTB off road now for anybody.
Do whatever you want of course. No one else cares what you do, why should they?
On Golf number five.
When I were thinner, a chap round the corner had a "limited".Brass number plate on the engine etc. Coveted it then and would buy one now if I could!!
Rigid forks yeah that's me too.
That said, the only "for" arguments I understand/can empathise with at the moment are "simplicity" (but then I don't find suspension complicated) and "weight".
You've got this back to front.
My guess is most people riding rigid regard it as the default, the baseline. There was a time all MTBs were rigid.
Some people see enough 'fors' in a sus fork to outweigh the 'againsts' (weight, cost, maintenance, complexity, set up, squishiness under load out of the saddle, whatever). Others don't.
Can't beat a VW love in 😀 - cheers peeps!, i have a little plaque on my engine by ABT with the name of the guy who built/worked on it "Niklaus Fleischer"...i admit to polishing it sometimes 😳 .
I think thats jesse wigman up there ^, i've watched him riding Ae and up at Innerleithan a few years ago and he's bloody quick on a hardtail, immense skill.
My guess is most people riding rigid regard it as the default, the baseline. There was a time all MTBs were rigid.
Wot he said ^ , my first mtb was rigid back in 1986, a muddy fox explorer for my 14th birthday along wi a naked poster of Jacquie Phelan wi the paw prints up her back, i no longer have the bike and sadly i no longer have the poster either, but i am an "honorary member" of the wombats thanks to Jacquie.
I seesaw between rigid and hardtail..
Right now, I'm in a phase where I would quite like to get hold of a good lightweight bolt through fork, with somewhere between 100mm and 120mm of travel..
This is due in part, to the fact that at the moment, I keep worrying that a combination of the technical rocky descents that I prefer and my seeming inability to slow everything down a bit (or is that my clumsy bike handling and the momentum needed to compensate for it) are likely to result in a damaged headtube at some point..
For some reason though, the idea of fitting a cumbersome squishy lump of machinery onto the font of my scalpel-like bicycle is distinctly unappealing
somafunk - MemberI think thats jesse wigman up there ^, i've watched him riding Ae and up at Innerleithan a few years ago and he's bloody quick on a hardtail, immense skill.
Aye, that it is. Nice chap too. He seems to have some special arrangement with physics.
I went single speed and rigid for the first time ever this winter, it's easier to maintain and on my local trails at least it is mostly un-necessary in the winter as they just become immensely wet and boggy any way. But as soon as things dry out (fingers crossed) the sus fork and geared drivetrain will be re-fitted.
Love riding my fully rigid mtb.
Best reply I have read on this post so far, is ... "because I can"
kinda sums it up perfectly ..
Some of us can - some of you can' t.
But as soon as things dry out (fingers crossed) the sus fork and geared drivetrain will be re-fitted.
Problem with this approach is that on our fair isle the weather flip-flops about at abandon. (Though to be fair since the hosepipe ban it's been a continuous flop with very little flip).
Budget/space allowing I'm more on the side of having 2 bikes, a dry weather one and a wet weather one, built and ready to go.
Cheers alex222, luv ya
I actually get rigid forks and I prefer an old skool golf gti to one of the 5th gen ones or whatever it is.
It is just how you wrote an essay when you could have said
'I think they're good because; I just do.'
I've got a 29er ht, also got 120mm Sus forks, they are gathering dust in the garage since I put the rigid forks on. It steers better and quicker and lines are more interesting an I don't have to change fork seals or send them away for service every 10 minutes. And my favourite car is a mark one golf.
I am over 40 though....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wombatbiker/1437514484/
You mean this picture? I so wanted a decent bike like that one
some special arrangement with physics.
I'd like one of them.
BTW I'm riding my rigid single speed and loving it.
I've put some suspension on it when/if the weather ever gets better.
Yeah, that's the one 😀 , I used to go into the bike dealership in Oban every lunchtime (it's now evobikes i believe) and sit on the Muddy Fox and play wi the gears, pull the brakes, leave sticky fingerprints all over it then go and buy my cotter pins for my cranks as i had an old 5 spd racer frame wi flat handlebars and chunky tyres that i used to rag about the forest roads and paths where we stayed in Dalavich, 28 miles into the darkest Argyllshire hills up Loch Awe side. The cranks on the racer were held in wi cotter pins and i always used to shear them attempting to do stuff on the racer that it was clearly not designed for.
Anyway my parents knew about the bike as i mentioned it to them every day for a month leading up to my birthday and one week beforehand it was gone - no longer in the window, i was heartbroken and inconsolable for the week leading up to my birthday but unbeknown to me my folks had been in and bought it for which i have eternally grateful for ever since as it cost a fortune back then, cue my birthday morning and i did not want to get out of bed as i was depressed, my folks came up to my room and gave me my birthday card which i opened and inside was a handbook for the muddy fox explorer, i ran downstairs and there it was in all it's glory - to say i was chuffed is an understatement, i did thousands upon thousands of miles on that bike, 50-60 miles a day as a 14yr old kid, i practically explored every inch of Argyll on it over the next couple of years. And they had got me the poster as well wi Jacquie sitting on the rock - I'll tell you something though 😉 , the bike in the picture is not a muddy fox, i met Jacquie at SSWC back in 2007 and mentioned to her bout it and she said it was one of Charlie Cunningham's frames (her partner), not a muddy fox at all - so there's a bit of trivia for you.
I'd still like an original poster though so if anyone has one or knows of one i'll pay good £ for it.
You were a lucky kid ,they were bloody expensive bikes.I have looked for that poster as well but not found it
Yeah i know i was lucky, i guess it was a few weeks wages for my dad back then as it was £350 or thereabouts if i remember correctly but i rode my old racer and bmx into the ground many many times and welded them back up in his workshop when they broke but i always managed to repair them somehow so they knew i would get use out of it, My Explorer was white wi yellow lettering and quite possibly the best present i ever got, i sold it in 1991 for a Marin Bear Valley and i've been progressing ever since 😀
I started with a Raleigh maverick in 1984 although I got to ride a mates Overburys crossfell quite a lot
I don't actually own a bike with suspension anymore. Like the directness of rigid forks and generally like to keep the bike as unfussy and easy to maintain as possible so I can just concentrate on enjoying the ride, lower weight is a plus too.
It's just a personal preference - not for everyone maybe. Been riding offroad for 25 years so it's hardly a new fad - just what I started with and have developed riding style to suit. On the 29er I regularly beat mates on hardtails down techy natural descents.
When I used to race Gorricks on my rigid bike in the early 2000s I would never finish last and I'm rubbish.
What I would like is for these niche-y steel frame companies to make a matching curved (thus self-centering) rigid fork. It also adds to the compliance vs. all these straight blade ones you can only get now.
while we're on the subject I have a Whyte 905 frame I was thinking about build into a rigid bike so I can use it for commuting when the roads are icy and come home cheeky [s]when[/s] if the weather gets better and things dry out. And for the odd XC blast.
any rigid fork recommendations? The cheaper end of the spectrum looks a bit dirt jump gnarrr
(OP I have a Bandit for trail riding and cheeks as soft as a baby's bottom so no Luddism here 😉 )
I spent the early 90s bouncing/falling down many of the hills in the Peak District on a rigid bike with awful canti brakes. Suspension and all those other new fangled inventions make riding more enjoyable no doubt. The flip side to this is that my local trails - the-nipping-out-for-a-quick-spin-after-putting-the-kids-to -bed trails - are too easy and boring with any half decent suspension and gears. As such I own a rigid single speed to put the fun and challenge back into my riding. The advantages of low maintenance, low cost and low(ish) weight are not to be ignored.
That said, I'm lucky enough to have more than one bike, so "the good bike" gets wheeled out for the more technical trails or longer days out. I can't imagine ever returning to the days of a rigid bike being my only mountain bike.
Round here at the moment the trails are all the suspension you need.
any rigid fork recommendations? The cheaper end of the spectrum looks a bit dirt jump gnarr
Orange F8s are pretty good and cheap too...
http://www.allterraincycles.co.uk/.Orange-F8-Rigid-Fork_125995.htm
Or for a bit more, Salsa Cromotos
Surly 1x1 forks are also excellent if you don't mind the canti mounts (the posts are removable though)
any rigid fork recommendations? The cheaper end of the spectrum looks a bit dirt jump gnarr
Lots of people like Singular. They work fine for me but I can't give a comparison against others. Actually I can a little - my 26er had carbon forks, they felt a bit 'twangy', the Singulars are heavier, being steel, longer, being made for 29ers, and more flexy rather than twangy I think.
Rigid forks have flex not travel, riding them takes a different technique to sus - point and shoot your line, and be a little lighter on the front. It's quite fun actually.
(Nice shade of blue!)