No matter what I do the damn thing gets so stiff during a ride that I can feel it through the bars if I wind on the lock (ooer). This mostly happens on right turns.

My LBS has checked my install (done using a park tools press) and that is okay. The bottom retainer fitted to the forks was carried out by another bike store who I bought the forks from and everything has been torqued up as per the CK guidelines.

My opinion is that the bottom race will not sit in the retainer correctly (or it could be the other way around but no matter at the moment). If you grab the end of the forks and try and move them before torquing it all up fully there is some slight play. This is to be expected; however, one movement stiffens the whole lot up and the other makes everything nice and smooth. Torquing up at this point makes everything okay but as soon as I ride the bike it all gets nasty and stiff again.

Anyone else had this happen, experiences, what can be done about it etc?

Someone help, please!

Cheers,

Dan

email that whole post to chris king themselves to see what they think?

I have exactly the same set up, what forks are you running? I have Fox Float 36’s – I haven’t ridden the bike yet – the last piece will be arriving in the post tomorrow before noon. I will let you know how I get on!

I’m using 36 Van RC2s.

Are we talking about a headset here? If so, maybe the fork crown race is upside down 🙂

Easily done.

That had occured to me but no, it’s not. Which is a bummer really as that is easy to fix…

did you face the top of the crown?

you’ll need one of these then

🙂

I used to be a bike mechanic and should’ve known better, but when I fitted mine, it took me a while to realise I’d fitted the lower race upside down, cos the race looks almost the same either way up 😳

Dans160 – I have just finished my Tracer build with Fox 36’s and a CK devolution headset. This isn’t going to be a huge amount of help, but I do not have this problem and so I would say that you must have some set up problem rather than a problem with the components themselves. Hope you get it sorted out soon.

Right. All fixed now. Apologies to Andy, on closer inspection the baseplate was indeed on upside down. I drifted it off and refitted it. Problem solved. Thanks to all and I guess that even bike stores get it wrong.