Suspension or Rigid Fork?

I currently have a trek marlin 29er SS (which is now a 1×10). But I want to get shot of the suntour fork on it.

Should I go rigid and embrace a lighter bike or would the ride benefits from a decent suspension fork outweigh *sorry – bad pun* the weight cost?

Cheers.

Depends what you want to do with it really. I love my rigid forks, they’re hilarious but I don’t see them as a substitute for suspension (I can ride most things on our regular rides without any bother but I have to ride them differently)

It’s not so much that you can’t have fun doing challenging offroad with rigid forks, but you need to embrace the whole package.

You will only miss suspension when riding down steps or over kerbs.

It’s not so much that you can’t have fun doing challenging offroad with rigid forks, but you need to embrace the whole package.

Well said.

The whole package can mean adjusting your riding position, higher volume tyres etc. Some bikes ride much better than others as rigids too. Only you know if it’s going to suit your riding – I think the weight part of it is a red herring, it’s more about what and how you like to ride.
Or, how maintenance-lazy, technically-apathetic and retro-grouchy you get..

I have come to particularily appreciate the singleply 2.5 Nevegal DTC

TBH I couldn’t disagree with Globalti more. Guess it depends what you do with it.

globalti – Member
You will only miss suspension when riding down steps or over kerbs.

Not true. How many other vehicles go back to NOT using suspension. None. Suspension is good, and lots of it too…

.
Not true. How many other vehicles go back to NOT using suspension. None. Suspension is good, and lots of too

….in your arrogant opinion 😉

IME its interesting for a few rides and nothing more so i would always opt for suspension if going of road

How many other vehicles go back to NOT using suspension. None.

A fair point, but those other vehicles tend to have engines and more passive occupant positioning right? )

IME its interesting for a few rides and nothing more so i would always opt for suspension if going of road

Ditto that,of course some die hards just stick with it….gawd knows why though……. 8)

I enjoy flitting between the two, makes you appreciate suspension when you get back on it, but rigid is a lot of fun and is a lot easier to keep clean in winter.
A second hand pair of steel 29er rigids will only cost around 30 quid, get some and a decent set of sus forks then switch between the two, happy days 😀

You will only miss suspension when riding down steps or over kerbs.

…says the “now mostly roadie”! 😉

I like rigid but I like sus forks more.

I’m surprised how much I enjoy rigid. I bought some carbon Pace RC29s from James^^^ and think they’re great! Rode down Dumyat with them last weekend, very capable.

I can’t think of a single occasion where I’ve ridden down a fast rocky descent and thought ” you know what, that’d be great with blurred vision and aching hands and taken at less speed because I’m an hair shirt wearing attention monger who’s handicapped myself with a stiff frontage”

Rigid adds challenge to otherwise tame trails. It also adds zip when climbing or spinning along smooth flat stuff. However, it rattles your eyeballs and makes your bingo wings flap like a bumble bee who’s late with an urgent nectar delivery. I love it but I wouldn’t choose it as my only riding option.

Buy a cheap rigid fork and give it a go. If you don’t like it, sell it on, but you’ll be surprised what you can clear, especially on a 29er.

As a fully paid up, hair-shirted attention monger with militant Luddite tendencies, I really like riding rigid – it’s what I started out with and just feels a bit more direct and involving and altogether less faff. Haven’t run suspension for the last 18 months as a result. Line choice gets a bit more important, and yes you may not be as fast on some descents, but it’s still fun, and it’s still a bike.

Flit between both.
Like both but on balance I like to be able to move my hands without wincing the next day.
Get some with a lockout and then you can do both without having to swap them over. 😀

I like my rigid front, so much so that i’m dithering whether to try the other more radcore bike with a fat front. The trails i ride generally aren’t that rough though as its 99% surrey hills, not sure i’d fancy it in the peaks or something.

I really enjoy riding my rigid 29er and built it accordingly, but I have just sold the FS bike, and now ordering a 140mm hardtail 29er, different bikes for different situations.

with a fat front. The trails i ride generally aren’t that rough though as its 99% surrey hills, not sure i’d fancy it in the peaks or something.

fat front stiffy in the peak…..tis remarkably easy really. 😀

I went to Colorado and Utah last summer with the rigid Inbred. I took the Reba just in case I fancied some bounce and put it on one day… It had been a while since I’d ridden anything bouncy and I found I didn’t have the energy or skills to work the fork hard enough to have fun on unknown trails. So I went back to rigid and got my smile back 🙂

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Musselman Dropoff[/url] by Simon J Taylor[/url], on Flickr

Tazzy – Perhaps peaks was a bad national park example, i was thinking of rough rocky alps-esque riding rather than perfectly groomed singletrack. 😀

suspension for off road and rigid for commute from me 🙂

not sure i’d fancy it in the peaks or something.

No, it’s okay. You just have to ride a bit differently and, in some generally rocky places, a bit slower, but given that 20 years ago we were riding all the same trails now on rigid steel 30lb bikes with cantis that we’re now riding on 24lb, 150mm full sussers with nuclear assisted vee-brakes, it’s not that surprising. How did we ever ride bikes before suspension eh? Perhaps it was all a dream… 😉

Nah, you old folk are just tougher than the fairies of yoof 😀

Nah, old(er) folk have bad eyesight and suffer less from eyeball-rattle so the rigids don’t affect their lame riding as much anyway )

Suntour XCM is it? Agreed – get rid. I’ve not had a rigid fork since I rode a BMX, but I see Exotic do a nice rigid carbon 29er fork – £129.00 on ebay. Otherwise Suntour’s Epicon is a world apart from the XCM and a very good fork, or 2nd hand for other brands for same price. Suspension makes the ride softer and allows you to go faster for the same skills level, which for most people = more fun, but not everyone, as you can see above.

Gotama – Member

The trails i ride generally aren’t that rough though as its 99% surrey hills, not sure i’d fancy it in the peaks or something.

Not me, but an interesting point of comparison:

Jesse Wigman on his way to beating about 100 people riding downhill bikes, at the fort william endurance downhill I beat him by one place so that’s alright.

I saw that fort William article somewhere and it’s stuff like that, as well as the shot from the jeff jones site tazzy posted and some guy called drevil on mtbr that make me want to make my Yelli rigid. That and the fact im now faced with a chunky bill for the damper cartridge on my marz 44s when i’m enjoying riding the swift more anyway. Just dithering now on full fat front or wait and stick a knard on my p35s with a standard rigid fork. Hmmmm.

@tazzymtb – ^^^great photo^^^

Rigid adds challenge to otherwise tame trails. It also adds zip when climbing or spinning along smooth flat stuff. However, it rattles your eyeballs and makes your bingo wings flap like a bumble bee who’s late with an urgent nectar delivery. I love it but I wouldn’t choose it as my only riding option.

This ^^ with the exception of ‘bingo wings’ as I have no idea if that is true, being the finely toned athlete that I am 😉

since riding rigid I have noticed that I stay away from anything that requires balls…. 😆

love my rigid predominently on the boulderstrewn singletrack and uber steep rock gardens of East Dartmoor..

I rode a rigid steel 456 with Orange f8 fork and alu bar for a year or so and experienced the battering described above..
On a Soul with carbon fork and bar the effect is reduced significantly, an absolute blast over smoother bouldery stuff, espeially if you can a bit of drift going on..

but on really jittery rough stuff it’s still an arse, in that it’s impossible to find a balance between lowering your speed enough to soak up the bumps and keeping enough momentum to get through..

Riding rigid is fine by yourself but it is slower so you end up getting dropped by your suspended mates.

There’s a trail down our way, the mid-section of which is fast, sizeable root steps, close together and plenty of loose flints and detritus about. It’s my benchmark for this.

On my 120mm HT 26er it’s OK, you could never call it smooth.
On my rigid 26 (carbon fork) it’s purgatory, I find one step OK but a bunch in a row plus all the trailcrap doesn’t leave enough recovery time between hits. It’s not much fun. Bingo wing overtime.
I aim to have a 29 rigid (steel fork) on the dirt this week prior to deciding if I want a sus fork for it. Will report back, watch this space ->