Anyone used a 450mm(ish) rigid fork on a Swift

I’m considering an on-one rigid fork which is 450mm and in the blurb states:

A 45mm fork rake works well with 29in wheels and 29in head angles, or 26in wheels and 26in head angles

I’d like to have one rigid fork that I could used on my 26 and 29er bikes so on the basis that my 26″ bike takes a 440mm fork and most 29ers seem to have 470mm, I asked Brant.

he replied

the 450mm ones are fine for 29in wheels clearance wise, or for use in a “69er” format.

For corrected 29in bikes, 470mm is best

So I read that as saying that really it’s for a 26″ frame with either a 26″ or 29″ wheel but that it’ll work passably on a 29er.

So, anyone tried it on a 29er – how is it – I’d expect it to be rather twitchy….

I ran a hummingbird on my swift just to see what happened.

went twitchy and cranks looked a little close to ground for comfort.

Brant is right as always but the frame geo needs to take the 450mm fork into consideration like the ragley TD-1 or genesis fortitude

If you run a chris king you could use a “tall” crown race to help.

But also a 470mm fork is close to a 140mm trail fork and worth considering that way round depending on your 26″ frame.

Yeah, that’s what I figured and I thought Brant’s explanation matched that but it doesn’t really match the blurb from the website (unless I’ve misread it) – A swift (for example) has 29″ wheels and headangles

I’d have thought ‘twitchy’ (read: old skool) would have been right up your street clubber, what with your penchant for narrow bars 🙂

In a not entirely unrelated fashion, I’ve been running 420mm forks on a 100mm-corrected 26er, and cornering round the local trails is fantabulous. You do pedal strike if you’re not careful mind.

I’ve got a one of the later inbred 29ers with 71deg 80mm sagged. (I think some of the earlier inbreds were 72deg)

Tried it with 470mm and 450mm rigid forks. Found I enjoy 450mm much more for the local twisty singletrack (bristol). If I’m heading to Wales I usually chuck a sus fork on it. With 170mm cranks and 2.2 inch tyres – pedal strike is not a issue at all.

I asked Sam the same question only recently.

Was told that it would quicken handling, drop BB height and not really be ideal.

Its a big step down especially if you have one of the earlier frames with the longer forks.

I’d like to have one rigid fork that I could used on my 26 and 29er bikes so on the basis that my 26″ bike takes a 440mm fork and most 29ers seem to have 470mm

Maybe going the other way would be less of a compromise?
I run a 29er PII fork (~470mm A-C) on my 26″ Kona and it’s great (subjectively, of course 😉 ), but I really wouldn’t fancy a ~440mm A-C fork on my Swift …