140mm forks, do I need travel adjustment or not?

Hi,
I'm building up a Santa Cruz Heckler, and was wondering whether I would need travel adjustment on the 140 / 150 mm forks it needs (TALAS or U-Turn etc). Is it essential or just a nice to have in order to get up the hills with these long travel forks now-a-days. Makes a big difference to the price if I don't really need it.

No. I have a talas on the HT & never use it. Don't miss it on my FS. I never drop the seat either.

Never used it on my enduro or my dialled alpine.

I have an 03 Heckler, and on that I've got ETA forks that go down from 130 to 30mm travel. I've found that really useful on the climbs. But, I wouldn't have a travel adjust that was via anything that wasn't a flick of a switch.

Ive got a set of Fox Float 140's on my Heckler and they r perfect.Maybe not enough travel for some but i think they work well

When I had 140mm U turn forks I was forever messing with the travel – UPHILL, Ahh I must wind them in a bit to Ahhh downhill, Full extension please.

Same with lockout too only I'd find myself at the end of a nice downhill section with them still locked out.

Now I have fixed travel and no lockout and I just ride it. 160mm travel up and down on a 456

Depends on the type of terrain you ride really. I've Talas on full susser that stay at 150mm. Have U-turn Revs on the XC bike that get a bit more use. Not for climbs though, more for jumps and lumps. The lock out feature is handy for climbing, but I've stopped using it as I always forget to set it back for the descents.

Same here. Have Pike 454 U-turns on my BLT2 and stopped using the travel adjust after the first couple of months

I never liked adjustable stuff as I always forget to use it. I use a Fox Float 150mm on my Heckler and it's great. I don't even bother using the wee lever/dial thingy on the RP23. Set and forget… that's my moto.

I have 120-150 adjustment, I use it on steep long climbs only (say granny gear 10m+) ETA is much nicer 🙁

I like adjustment, but only to fine-tune the bike and then just leave it. Think they did the wrong thing with TALAS making it only three stage – I like mine with the 3mm increments. Have my Stumpjumper at 120mm, which I prefer to the full 130.

I think it depends if you want to use a bike for a lot of different things or not. If you have different bikes for different jobs then no I don't think its worth it. I have found it very useful recently for my all-rounder type bike, winding down my Pikes for XC, wind down and firm up for dirt jumping or mucking about in a skate park, or full softer travel for a bit of DH run sessioning.

Lots of great feedback so far. Thanks.

I want the bike mainly for XC, but I'm doing more and more trail centres now and wanted to get the most out of them. I'm not very good at getting lots of air, but it would be fun to start learning. Hence lots of travel for the centres and downhills, but I don't want to make the steep hills any harder than they already are!

+1 cool hand luke

got a 130mm FS, a 160mm FS and now a 140mm hardtail, do all sorts of riding from chilterns XC to alpine DH. Never had or wanted lockout or travel-adjust.

the only people I know who've used travel adjust have invariably forgotten and left them wound down for a rocky DH etc.

I think it depends not so much on the terrain as the rider.
I for example use to use the travel adjust on my forks regularly when I had it (lowering the front for climbing), but does it bother me now I don't have it? Not really (although the current fixed travel forks do have less travel than the previous wind down ones).

Basically, it's good if you actually use it (like on the fly adjustable compression damping). Lots of people can't be bothered / forget though.

In the 18 months I have had a Talus, I think I have shortened the travel a couple of times and, like others posting, usually forget to change it on the downhill. I ride a real mix of trails, mostly in the mountains that have a lot of steep uphill and downhill and just haven't found the adjustable travel necessary–I just leave it at full extension.
I do, however, use the Pro-Pedal on my rear Fox RP-23 on long or steep climbs—if I forget to change it on the downhill, I still have some travel available.

I have U turn on my hardtail and never use it. It's something else to break and in the case of U turn when you wind the forks down there is an annoying knocking sound – apparently this is normal as I sent mine back assuming they were faulty but SRAM said they were fine.

ETA was useful but that was easy and effective. U turn requires you to stop to do it properly, it requires too many turns to change the travel.

I have four 130/140 travel forks on various bikes and I use the travel adjust all the time. It makes the long climbs so much more rideable.

Yes, but depends on the system. The on the fly systems like fox, magura , marzocchi and rockshox 2 step system are good…u-turn is crap. I find i only ever used it when i knew i had a steep monster climb ahead. With the talas i use it whenever im going up its so easy.
If you need it for a 140mm forked bike is debatable…depends if you like to climb or not?

Could also that those against travel adjust don't actually pedal up steep hills?

I've two forks for my 456Ti, a 120mm Reba and a 36 Talas (max 150mm).

For really steep stuff (ie granny climbs) the Talas is better as I run it with a fair amount of sag anyway and find when its Talas'd down I've about 60mm of travel – whereas with the fixed Reba, it loses the sag and its 120mm…

And I guess on an FS it'll be worse without some kind of rear lock-out?

If I was buying it would be either a 32 Talas 140/150 or a Revelation U-Turn.

If Fox had made the 32 with a 20mm axle it would be the perfect trail fork…
If Rockshox had made the Rev with a 2-step system it would be the perfect trail fork…

I run Z1 lights on the 456, the eta is great for the climbs and only requires a quick reach down to activate.

not sure if Marzocchi still use the eta system?

I have Lyrik U-Turns on my Bullit, they're an awesome fork and having U-turn has transformed the bike significantly; winding the forks down lets it climb well enough that I'm happy using it as my trail bike whenever I'm riding good descents (Peaks) or with slower riders where the handicap helps even things out. It just makes the bike so much more versatile.

I'm building up a 5" trail bike thing at the moment, that will have Pike's on it, but not sure I'll bother with the u-turns for that.

Thanks for all the opinions. I agree that you're more likely to use a system if it's quick and easy to use on the fly, which perhaps U-turn isn't. I've decided to go for Rock Shox Revelation 140mm (without U-turn) £300. I'll fine tune the ride by adding or removing spacers to the all travel thingy (120 – 150mm) so that I can have one setup for all occasions. Over all, adding travel adjustment was going to be too expensive for the benefit I think, although I can fully understand that having it available in certain (hopefully rare) situations would be a great advantage. We shall see!!!!