Quasar fork – linkage, suspension

Anyone know anything about Quasar front forks? Apparently British and similar construction to GIrvin.

Just bought one to add to my weird stuff collection 🙂

Hi there,

I've got a pair of Quasar forks, they're in bits at the moment and the elastomer is no use.

They were made local to me [West Mids], I might still have the sales literature?

An ex-racer guy I know has a NOS pair, made of titanium, he was sponsored by them I think?

If you want my bits you're more than welcome to them for free? my email is in my profile.

Matt.

<holds hand up>

Ahh, yes, I was one half of Quasar Racing responsible for design/build/marketing/tea making etc.

I hope you have a more recent pair rather than the earlier ones which were rather frightful. Be careful as some of the aluminium fork legs had a tendency to, err, snap! If only I could go back and do it again properly.. but there you go.

Have a search around over at http://www.retrobike.co.uk as there are a few scanned copies of brochures and test reports too. I scanned quite a bit into a (retrobike) forum post a few years back – let me know if you can't find it and I'll see if I can.

Feel free to ask any qu's and I'll do my best to help out 🙂

I always wonder what Deb Murrell's doing these day too…

Thanks Matt

pushbikerider – I had a good look through Retrobike – very interesting. Shame about the fork leg breakage problem. That's stuffed up my plans for the MegaAvalache 🙂 I'll be very careful if I stick them on a bike!

How can I identify which model it is, and where did they break?

Hi epicyclo – if you can post a pic up (or email me, address is in profile) I'll have a go at identifying it for you. I think they carried on with another fork to use up some parts after I left but the design wasn't too different.

The fork legs break just under the hole where the bottom links bolt in so keep an eye on that – and yes, no retro Mega for you 🙂

If you like collecting weird stuff see if you can find a pair of Lawwill Leader forks, now they're still ridable (just) although the action is rather interesting…

PS – did you find the Mint Sauce cartoons I posted up on retrobike? One of my proudest moments was blagging a pair of Quasar forks on Coleman Cow's bike 🙂

These?

i knew Matt would drag his pair out of the museum of disasters in his garage 🙂

I have an interest in linkage forks from my days riding on girder forked motorbikes. For short travel suspension, I felt the girder (linkage) fork was superior to telescopic – no stiction and less slop.

I have a couple of Girvins and a Look Fournales.

The Girvins ride ok but the elastomer suspension limits their capability (ie minimal damping). For a bit of fun, I popped some on my bike for an 8 hour in Oz last year and spent the race imitating a pogo stick. Nice action when I hit a bump, but a millisecond later I paid for it 🙂

The Look Fournales are light and look the business, but their air shock has very little damping even on full. This latter surprised me because Fournales shocks had a good reputation in the motorcycle world. The big disappointment with then is that their linkage promotes dive rather than prevents it under braking, which negates one of the big advantages of a properly designed linkage.

I'll look for that Mint Sauce cartoon. 🙂

Wow, I'd never seen those Look forks before! That looks more like what I would have liked to have done at Quasar 🙂

Hairychested – that's the one yes! 2.5" of 'downhill' action:

The braking has the potential to be interesting on that fork. The part on which the brakes are mounted has a pivot above the axle. The axle to braking pad length will therefore be a variable.

It would need a deeper brake area on the rim – like that needed on the suspension hub used on Dahons recently.

…no it's fine; there will be a tiny amount of movement at the axle but it doesn't cause a noticeable change in the pad/rim location…

You can bet they really wanted it to have a disk brake though (err, attached somewhere) 🙂

I had a set of Leaders.

Rode great up kerbs, otherwise a bit poopy.

cynic-al – Member
I had a set of Leaders.

Tell us more please…

Erm I bought them, rode them, sold them…don't think I tried them out off road much, as they felt odd, lots of stiction too.

Pompey built up yet epicyclo? actually, i didnt even see if you got your silver spokes… =)

..sounds about right for the Leaders, loads of stiction (or deliberate compression platform) then they run through their 2.5" of travel fairly readily.

Controlled rebound and very accurate steering but they weigh a ton (about 4lbs) I took them off my Fuquay (above) and put the Project 2 rigids back on as they made it rather nose heavy.

I'd expect stiction with the shock shown – just like 1 leg of a telescopic fork – worst of both worlds possibly?