Stiffening up my front end……………..

I currently have 150 mm Pace Fighters on a 2006 Yeti 575. Thet are Quick Release

Being pretty burly (!!??) I am keen to stiffen up the front end a bit

I think the forks are reasonably stiff for their type (similar to Fox 32’s)

I guess the ultimate would be something like a Fox 36 with 20 mm axle (tried a friend’s Lapierre with these and difference was hooge) but how much of that difference is due to the fork and how much to the axle? ie would the new Fox 32 150mm with 15mm axle offer significantly more stiffness than my Pace’s? Or is it mainly in the fork itself?

if you see what I mean……….

I had a Fox 32 140mm fork on my 575 and found it was the weak link on the bike, didn’t hold it’s line very well and felt a bit like a stilt on the front.

Swapped for a Fox 36 Talas and it’s suddenly a different bike, much stiffer, more composed and the front and back ends seem better matched.

Still, a Pike or Rev with Maxle would have probably been a good solution too. I seem to ride with the 36 set to 130mm travel most of the time – hardly ever use the 160mm setting.

Combination of the fork and the axle. I ran some 130mm Pace on my old Cove, and they were horrendously flexy if you were ‘pushing on’ when it was rough.

15mm will be stiffer, as will 20mm. Personally, I would stick with something 20mm. As mentioned above, a Fox 36 would feel light night & day in comparison.

Tried the Halo hex key skewers? Supposed to stiffen/tighten things up more than a QR. Fairly cheap to try.

ermmm thanks all

thinking is that I’ll go the whole hog and go 36mm something or other

I found the different between QR and 20mm Fighters to be quite big when I used them. We’ve got some RC41 20mm Fighters off a demo bike kicking around here somewhere….

Go with 20mm if you go big. There’s stuff in America tests etc all showing 15mm is a waste of time.

Yea get some 36s they will sort you out.

From what I can tell one of your Qs asked something like will a standard fox 32 be much stiffer than my fork or would I need to get the 15qr to notice any difference. I say you would need at least a 15qr for any noticeable difference.

With the 36s the extra stiffness comes from a combination of the 36mm stanchions and the 20mm axle. Either will give a noticeable gain in stiffness but together the difference is quite large.

HTH.

Recently built up a Chameleon with Thors, and the difference between them and the QR forks that were on it before is quite noticeable. For more then 120mm I think QR is dead now.

ive got talas 32 on my 5spot but i found the front flexy i also had a very light flexy wheelset on. ive swapped out for new dt ex1750 wheelset with the 9mm bolt thru rws qr and the front is much stiffer not sure how much is down to the wheel and how much the forks but its defo way better now