STW forumites – what difference, if any, will it make to my El Mariachi frame if I fit:
a. 47cm rigid forks, instead of
b. 49cm rigid forks.

Reading geometry data from the Salsa site the frame is used with 100mm suspension forks. I assume that there will be enough room for my 29er wheels with the 47cm rigids, however how will it affect the general handling? I’m no frame geometery guru so please be gentle, cheers.

Front end and bb will be lower, HA and SA will be a smidge steeper.

Handling will be a touch quicker.

You probably won’t die.

I’ve fitted shorter, 45cm rigid forks to a 29er and TBH, once ridden a few times adjusted to the way it handled and simply got on with it. 2cm shorter fork will steepen the headtube angle by a degree, plus obviously drop the stem/bars a touch so you might want to consider stem length and saddle layback as a consequence

Cheers everyone…no not all of you just everyone 😉
oh and dovebiker

Handling is already very quick, and angles are steep. Wouldn’t want it any more so tbh.

Whether or not you’ll like it I couldn’t say.

Ta, looks like I’ll play it safe and go for the 49cm forks, I dont have the time and money to make a possible wrong choice.
Exotic 15mm through axle ones BTW.

Which forks?

I’d get the Salsa Cro Moto 29er forks as unsurprisingly they would be perfectly suited to the bike.

My mate has a El-Mar SS with those forks and it rides lovely.

Pretty sure my El-Mar has 47cm (46.8cm) forks, will run fine with the 49cm though so don’t worry.

Which age STATO? Not sure it’s stayed the same its whole life?

I’ve had both the Cromoto Grande and the Carbon Firestarter. The latter is *slightly* longer, I think I might’ve slightly preferred it with the slightly shorter fork but it really didn’t make that much difference. However both were longer than 46.8cm.

Which age STATO? Not sure it’s stayed the same its whole life?

Good point, mine is a 2013.

Ive just looked and the 2014/15/16 all state 483mm forks in the geo chart, with other differences being 60mm drop vs 2013 66mm drop, and head angle being 71 vs 2013 71.7. Both changes within the region of what you would expect from a 15mm fork increase (there were other slight changes to the frames but looks like they kept the same ‘feel’ to the geo numbers)

My 2013 El Mariachi felt better with the 465mm Exotics than it did with the 100mm Rebas. That frame was designed to run with 80mm (468) or 100mm (483) suspension forks (Salsa measurements assume 20% sag).

[/url]2016-02-12_07-56-38 by james shepherd, on Flickr[/img]

I’ve ran both salsa Cromoto 29er forks and Surly ECR 29+ rigid forks on mine. Much preferred the slacker angle of the Surly ones.

Saying that it now has a Salsa enabler fork with a fat front.

Exotic 15mm through axle ones BTW.

I’m about to do the same for my Krampus

<ahem>the discount code from the STW review appears to still work</ahem>

ir_bandito, cheers for the tip.

Exotic 15mm through axle ones BTW.

I’m about to do the same for my Krampus

Blasphemy!!!