1st time on a Lefty , surprised ?

On holiday in Zell Am See Austria last week we wanted to hire a couple of bikes . Wife went for an E Bike lady in the shop asked me if I wanted to try a Lefty . Always been intrigued but never tried one so a chance of a carbon Cannondale FS.1 I think HT anyway with XT kit makes a change from the usual basic rental kit .She explained a lot of people take one look and say ” I’m not riding that !”

I was expecting it to be really twitchy but came away surprised how ” ordinary” it rode . It was fast and the climbing was phenomenal. Still doesn’t make sense to me though. I was looking at prices, looks like you have to spend north of £6K for a Scalpel with a Lefty . I guess they are expensive to make because they sure are expensive to service!

Any fans on here?

Not great for home servicing a there are fewer service centres than for other brands.

But they ride well enough.

I really like the idea of them, never ridden one but I’d like a shot…

They ride well but I don’t want to own one

My boss loves his lefty HT.

Does one look at how the wheels are attached to a car and think it doesn’t make any sense, or how aviation undercarriage works, or maybe they should take down the London Eye as it also makes no sense? A solidly made strut with stub mounted axle makes fine engineering sense. The surprise comes with the associated running costs, in a way the servicing and parts costs suffer from the designs lack of ubiquity.

I’ve have the older lefty (like triple crown) and the newer ocho version and loved them both, the suspension side of them are better than sids/fox etc, but with them being very bespoke comes bespoke parts around them ie hubs/stems etc, also you cant get mudguards to suit like the little ones that easily go on sids/fox 32 etc

Does one look at how the wheels are attached to a car and think it doesn’t make any sense, or how aviation undercarriage works, or maybe they should take down the London Eye as it also makes no sense?

Except that a lefty has a significant torsional force on the suspension component, whereas the others mostly have either linkages to reduce this, or little to no suspension at all.

I loved the max series, still have a 26er 140 carbon max in my spares pile. Back a few years obviously, but they were stiffer than any of my QR equipped bikes, which was mind blowing to me. At first you get on ride like normal, look down note the missing leg & then might wobble. Headset bearing were expensive & didn’t last long, on top of the regular (used to be thumbprint tuning) servicing.

I wouldn’t buy one now though, std forks do the same job, for far less faff

Except that a lefty has a significant torsional force on the suspension component

Except that they don’t. One would think they do, but have seen physical forces diagrams that surprisingly demonstrate that this is not the case from the way that forces are loaded through the tapered axle. The multiple long roller bearing design between the sliding components is functionally far more resistant to out of plane twisting and bending than any stanchion on a pair of bushings will ever be, even with half the supply of legs.

I always liked the look of the head shock, would be a very neat solution to gravel bike suspension all these years later. I guess though that the cost and servicing issues and the fact that no one else would be using them means it’ll never happen

Quite a few brands have in headtube suspension.

And the leverage ratio on a bike wheel is far higher….

I’ve got a Scalpel HT with a Lefty. It’s a fantastic bike. There are no downside to the handling from the Lefty, but the maintenance is pricey.

I was looking at prices, looks like you have to spend north of £6K for a Scalpel with a Lefty

I have two Lefty bikes, FS & gravel, both bought brand new 50% ish off. RRP is crazy though, as is buying just the fork on its own. What is it, about £1.5k?! Think Pauls had a Scalpel at a massive discount recently though!

I think they’re great. I like the fact some people seem unable to get their heads around them :) Obviously though, they ride like a normal bike, why wouldn’t they?!

Rode one years ago. I’d heard good things about them so was expecting it to be fine performance wise, but was expecting it to distracting, looking down and seeing half the fork gone, even subconsciously.

Never even noticed it. I’d happily have one. Mud clearance is excellent too

Sadly all the women I’ve known have been right handed.

avdave2
Full Member
I always liked the look of the head shock, would be a very neat solution to gravel bike suspension all these years later.

And you would be right.
Cannondale even made an XS800 waaay before gravel.

Had my Lefty FS for 9 years now. Still fun to ride. No issues with service costs because I haven’t ever serviced it. I imagine after saying that now it will explode in a dramatic fashion this weekend in the black mountains.

Loved the Oliver fork on my Slate. Piece o’ piss to do the basic service too. A bike that was ahead of it’s time.

I’ve a lefty pbr/opi (2013). I remember my first impression coming from a fork with a qr was how the front wheel was exactly where I thought it should be all the time because it was so much stiffer.

Compared to modern boost/through axles there isn’t much difference but at the time it was a notch above imo. I had mine serviced once. It’s long overdue another – the stansion has signs of wear. Quoted £400 to repair. It’s an 11 year old bike so I’ll just ride it into the ground.

Still the coolest thing out but way out my budget these days.

You’ve done well with stanchions… am on my 4th within same time frame. It is expensive when it needs doing, and daft when one could almost buy a new latest sid ultimate for the servicing cost… something that’s tempting to do even with the added hub swap and headset faffage… but then one glance at the filament wound carbon on my shaft and I remember sometimes its good to be different. I now try to do a routine alcohol flush and fresh oil bath every 5o+hours or so to try and make it survive as long as possible, really easy to do… don’t fancy taking it apart any further than that though.

MERLIN have Leftys (30mm and 100mm) for £500. Add a hub and wheel rebuild to that

I like the idea of them, and I’ve only ever ridden one around a CP. but it’s the associated limited and expensive bits and pieces that you need to go along with it, like hubs and headsets that puts me off.

DickBartonFull Member
I really like the idea of them, never ridden one but I’d like a shot…

Same here. Back in 2003 I was looking at Cannondale F800(?) with Lefty at around £1k. Went for a Kona hardtail instead in the end and never scrated the Lefty itch, partly because after adapters (Project321 etc) it was getting a bit pricey.

There’s a roadie I follow who does the Pan Celtic race and other long distance stuff, rides a Laverack Ti frame with a Lefty fork, and it looks absolutely lush

Owned a few back int day – rode well. Did run into some tech problems that were frustrating as it would need sending off, as it was way more complex than a trad bushing fork. You used to have to reset the bearings as they would drift (easy job, but an odd thing to attend to) but I assume that is ancient history now.

Once I was over the this looks really cool and different phase (I had an early one in 2000 and it really did look unusual, would got loads of comments on the trail), I felt they looked basically terrible on a bicycle.

If you think a MTB can be an aesthetic object then you can’t be bolting a lefty to it. OTOH if bicycle aesthetics are a matter for the road, then that won’t matter and they are great forks.

I felt they looked basically terrible on a bicycle

nah. They look rad :)

nah. They look rad :)

Which is offset by everyone going “half your fork is missing!” and other such hilarities. I used to work in a shop that sold Cannondale and by the time the 17th customer of the day had walked past the bike and said “is it supposed to look like that?” it got very wearing.

Much like riding a tandem and constantly hearing “he/she isn’t pedalling at the back!”

A friend had a pair of those Lauf (leaf spring carbon) forks on her bikepacking bike, she had much the same to the point where she’d actively avoid any bike-related conversations.

had a f29’er 2014 it was the lightest and fastest bike i’ve ever had, although it felt like a pogo stick when it got techier

I have a Lefty story! The only time I rode one was when demoing a Cannondale (can’t remember the name of it , that single pivot bike they did before the Rush) at QECP. I was all bold as brass riding in this group because I knew the park so well. Problem was it was wet and drizzly and QE has a lot of exposed tree roots… I was flying ahead of the group, slipped sideways on a root, flew over the bars, head first into a tree. Ouch. got up, said to my mate when he arriived that I’d hurt my neck and needed to go home. He drove me home. I had a hot bath to get over the ache. Didn’t work, so I walked up the hill to my nearest A&E. Next thing I know I was strapped down on a spinal board getting an xray. Had cracked 2 vertibrae in my neck. Huh, put me off Lefties for life.. (Although it may have actually been down to those crappy IRC tyres Cannondale used to put on their bikes!)

Loved the look of the lefty, performance was fine, but i just couldn’t get on with a bike i couldn’t do no handies with, sounds weird, but on long rides it’s nice to just stretch whilst on boring flat bits, the lefty was just not designed to be well balanced in that way.

I suspect a Lefty from 25 years ago would be as strong and stiff as most modern forks, probably more so. Not to mention more free moving. Most people don’t realise how much binding goes on with bushing forks until they ride something that just doesn’t suffer from that. I think they look rad. They’ve never looked at all strange to me because my dad had one.

My only objection now is the longer offset. Looking at the Scalpel it’s been reduced a bit but is still 50mm vs the Sid build at 44mm.

What is the service cost these days?

I always thought Cannondale should have sponsored Brett Wolf with one.

They look great, I’ve always wanted one but Cannondales have always eluded me when I’ve changed bikes.

Ive had a few dales w/leftys. The constant “not sure about that” or ‘half yer forks missing” gets very old very fast.

I still have my 2007 Jekyll 800 with a Lefty max 140mm travel.  It is a very plush fork, not sure of the servicing availability of this nowadays.  The last service, quite some time ago, was to Thumbprint and they made a reet balls of it so I got my money back and sent to to the Evans service centre in Kendal where it came back good as new.

27.2 seatpost. I tried to clear the double on the BMX track at LUBP and cased it, smacking my nadgers on the seat and snapping the dropper clean off.  I was lucky I didn’t impale myself that day.

Not a lefty, but had a good go on a use sub at mountain mayhem in about 2002.

The lack of diving was more odd than missing a leg.

I now try to do a routine alcohol flush and fresh oil bath every 5o+hours or so to try and make it survive as long as possible

I’m a lefty and you’ve just described perfectly my healthcare regimen.

Love them.
Had a Flash 29er  then had a custom steel frame built around a 100mm Lefty for my 40th.
So plush in small washboard ripples compared to a standard fork. Had seen the Merlin deal and was tempted to pick one up as a spare just in case.

^ I like that, tell me more about the Saffron.

I’ve had a few lefty’s, mostly the 100mm 26″ versions which were all great, worked very well, tracked incredibly well and were very easy to give a cartridge and damper service once you got hold of the castle tool. I never needed to get a bearing service on them they just kept on going.

I did have a set of 140 max on my old prophet. it had manitou SPV damper in it which was utter rubbish for that fork. I could never get it set up right. bearing migration was also a total pain and I swore I’d never get a set of longer travel lefty’s again.

since then I’d bought a hardtail at one of the old lefty carbon ELO’s that was just brilliant.

Not a lefty, but had a good go on a use sub at mountain mayhem in about 2002.

The lack of diving was more odd than missing a leg.

I had one of those too, briefly. the lack of dive was quite nice once you’d got used to it. The inconsistent damping from the englund air cartridge was utter tosh and completely ruined it.