Tell me about Lefty forks

Even just where to buy them would be a start. Nothing comes up on a Google search.

Cannondale’s own website is a bit crap too. http://www.cannondale.com/bikes/headshok-1/lefty-29-er/lefty-29-er-family Three different models, but no information on what the difference is.
Are they air or metal spring ?
What do the adjustment knobs and remote lever do ?
How much do they cost ?
Do they fit a conventional 1 1/8″ frame ?

In my ongoing frame snapping saga, one possibility I’m thinking of is a Nicolai Argon 29er with a Gates carbon drive, Rohloff hub and Lefty fork.

Like this, but green.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ejwj642Qbxg/TTW21TROCWI/AAAAAAAABKk/S6yRPj1uIw8/s1600/DSCF0267.jpg

Air springs

Rebound and lockout are the usual controls.

Chuffing expensive – all over £1000 now.

Yes you can get adaptors to fit them to 1 1/8th frames.

Google Dr Cannondale for more information on models and prices.

They work fine and dandy, the 100mm one can be used on a 29er (I’ve done it) They are metal sprung with an air damper, the knobs on top use the dial to lock/unlock the fork and the middle “guage” sets the preload.
They ain’t the lightest but they do work really really well and if you look after them they’ll last a bit of a hammering.
Lots on here about them, search “Lefty” and you’ll get service centers and dealers no prob.

Yup, they’re expensive as an upgrade, best of buying a bike with one on.. erm.. like mine.

Oh yeah flip that reminds me…

Soz Pete! Will sort out hopefully by tomoz! 😳

Pity, Graham, cos I had one for sale but Pete’s snapped it up straight away!

Very stiff and robust fork. Very reliable. Looks the donkey’s. Easy to fix front wheel punkchure/change tyre. Lightweight.

Great fork, had a few over the years. Secondhand is a good way to go for a conventional dlr2 or something, can pick up good models for a few hundred, but I’d guess the 29er lefty would be far rarer in teh secondhand markets.
As much as I like them, they seem impossible to justify as a standalone, new purchase. There’s a performance advantage, but it’s nowhere near reflected in the premium you’d be shelling out.

Cannondale’s website has shat the bed recently – no archive info last I looked.

What do the adjustment knobs and remote lever do ?
Rebound and the remote is lockout, with auto unlock for big hits.

How much do they cost ?
New, **** loads, 2nd hand not so much – though I only watch lefty max’s. Though you need to add a new wheel/hub into the equation too.
Lots of ppl have changed ‘normal’ lefty’s to run as a 29-er fork, check out the C’dale forum on MTBR for lots of info on Lefty conversions.

Do they fit a conventional 1 1/8″ frame ?
3rd party aftermarket 1 1/8 steerer have been available for years, though C’dale release the “left 4 all” series over the last couple of year to make them more adaptable for non c’dale bikes

Plenty on e-bay. I picked up an unused Carbon 130 Max from the states for £400. I run it on a Cannondale frame and sometimes on a standard frame with the adapter.

Great fork.

Love mine, its from 2002, but had a complete strip/service recently from Alf Jones in Wrexham.

Now runing super smooth on my HT.

Love it.

if you’re interested i’m half heartedly trying to sell one…

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-cannondale-carbon-lefty-110mm-sl

Thanks for the replies.
So, about £1500 then if you include a new hub and steerer tube. 😯
Although they’ve got a slightly heavier version with no remote for less than half that.

Looks like you can convert a 26er to 29er by reducing the travel so maybe second hand would be the way to go. I’m already looking at well over £1500 for an Argon and all the Gates bits.

Looks like you can convert a 26er to 29er by reducing the travel so maybe second hand would be the way to go. I’m already looking at well over £1500 for an Argon and all the Gates bits.

Aye, didn’t realise you could do that – sounds like it’s just a spacer or two, so knocking a lefty max down to 110mm of travel sounds like a good solution.

they come in coil and air sprung flavours BTW, knobs and dials depend on the model you go for. 2nd hand they aint too expensive but budget for a £100 strip and rebuild on any 2nd hand one unless you *know* it has been done recently or is almost new.

I’ve had (and still have) a few, love them to bits. Best off getting a more recent one as you can do the bearing re-seat much easier on the later ones with split rings.
(early mk 1DLR, Jakes and 130mm Max require time effort and in some cases special tool to do a bearing re-seat)

And yes, you can just add polyurethane or alu spacers to reduce the travel for 29er use.

Bear in mind the Lefty max’s are coil sprung, and weigh a bit more than the newer ones. 1700g or theres about for my lefty max carbon, 2Kg for my Ali one (including steerer).

A post 2005 unit will probably be the best bet, as they moved to metric standards & you can upgrade these “old” ones with the later PBR/XLR damping (not cheap option, but it is an option).

oh and if purcashing 2nd hand there are: Manitou damped units upto 2007, fox replaced the internal’s in 2008, but then they were replaced with Rockshox solo air & C’dale’s PBR damper on the latter units.

Manitou came in FFD, TPC and SPV versions, FFD being the most basic & SPV the ‘best’. Though some ppl believe the TPC a better fork.. C’dale didn’t agree and only fitted SPV to the carbon versions. I test rode a TPC lefty and thought it ace, I’ve since aquired two SPV’s and didn’t overly love them – got the PBR upgrade done to carbon one (yet to ride it though)

Mine has Fox RLC internals. It’s ace.

Mr. Zippy,out of interest did you change the damper from a manitou lefty ? if so how much did the pbr upgrade cost ? and who did it, been waiting to hear real world reports on the upgrade

“dale – Member
Mr. Zippy,out of interest did you change the damper from a manitou lefty ? if so how much did the pbr upgrade cost ? and who did it, been waiting to hear real world reports on the upgrade”

I would like to know about the upgrade costs as well.

I got Tony @ Thumbprint to do it, and if you really wondering about the upgrade cost, you can’t afford it 😈
TBH I had my two lefty serviced at the same time (both needs there seals dealing with, and he swapped the ‘feet’ between them for me), so the bill I got back wasn’t totally clear but around £300ish for the damper & labour/servicing ontop.

It did come back weighing less though, which was nice – 1535g (wet, inc steerer) vs the orignal 1680g (dry, inc steerer)

…and it’s still sat on my desk next to me, I’ve yet to refit it to the bike!

The new 2012 100mm lefty carbon xlr 1000 29er fork is $1300 with $100 for steerer of various types off project 321.

So about a grand with another £80 for a hub.

I too am looking at one for a Nicoali AC29er are bike project, similar use to you I guess Graham, 24hr racing but also marathon and long distance xc.

At about 1200g they are 500-600g lighter than anything else. Expensive yes, but Roxkshox SID 120mm 15qr or new fox fit 120rlc are all in the £800-£900 mark.

Forks make as much a difference to how your bike a handles and it’s overall weight as the frame. I think people pay too little attention to them really.

Not trying to justify the price, just saying…

may have been posted already – cannot be arsed to read it all

any >2005 lefty can be fitted with 2011 internals

i did it to a lefty max carbon

internals cost £250 – fitting somewhere down south was £35 inc return postage

Done a bit more noodling and it looks like the 140mm lefty’s have a 510mm axle to crown so very close to the 100mm 29er mark of 506mm for Rockshox/508mm Fox for 100mm travel. Thus limiting their travel to 100mm would deliver an effective 29er fork.

So any 2008 or 2009 Lefty Max would have modern internals and the carbon ones weigh not a lot.

BlackCatbone do a very light carbon/Kevlar steerer too at around 100g to fit any stem as do Project 321.

The project321 hub only weighs 125g all in so that is 60g lighter than a Hope Pro2

The 12bar streerer http://www.blackcatbonebikes.com/

Project 321 http://www.project321.com/products_bike-lefty-adapter-main.php

Carbon Steerer

Gah, every time I look at threads about Leftys I want one.

Nobody’s mentioned the service/ bearing resetting intervals though.

Well I did have one for a year and had to reset the bearings once which was dead easy.

I ride many weekends following which according to a Fox service manual I should send them to a man, pay them £100 to have them serviced!!! In the grand scheme of things I think they are theoretically low maintenance! Keep the boot in good nick and not only should the bearings lsr longer than bushes inherently they should also be less maintenance.

As with all these things if you search the web hard enough problems can be found but that go’s for all makes of forks…Jedi won’t touch Fox; stantion wear etc. Some people have bad rockshox experiences, others Marzipan, Manitou, Maverick..I think in the context of numbers in use, whilst not to be ignored, one has to apply a degree of common sense.

Nobody’s mentioned the service/ bearing resetting intervals though.

Lefty service schedule (2010 DLR) – bearing reset every 25h/regrease telescope every 50h/oil change 100h/service annually (which is a pain as there’s not many places that can do them – mine had to go to Derby and was away for 10 days).

Fox air forks need oil changing every 100h and a full service at 200h, which is comparable. The other stuff’s not exactly onerous.

Andy

I’m a bit confused by all the different models.
Does this carbon Lefty and wheel for £350 on ebay look like a good deal ?
It’s been relisted as it didn’t sell at £400.
I take it I’d need this Project 321 steerer at £52 to make it fit my 1 1/8″ Lynskey head tube ?
The Lynskey head tube is 5″ (127mm) long. Will a Lefty fit that ? Is it easy to reduce the travel to suit a 29er ?

Looks like the same fork is £850 from China, plus another £100 for the hub, so it’s going to work out just under half price for the second hand one.

You can add another £100 onto that eBay one for a service (LL in ‘Nottingham’, or Derby as it’s known to the rest of us, can do this if you’re in the E Mids), though after that it should be as good as new.

Dr Cannondale has 2010 110mm travel forks for 790€ (alloy) or 930€ (carbon), and r2-bike.de have 32h Cannondale hubs for 107.50€ if you’d feel more comfortable buying from Germany than China (Project 321 hubs made in the US so can’t see why they’d be cheaper from China if legit). Further to this, hubs are about £85 direct from P321; they’re doing wheels from £195 and will sell to the UK though I don’t know how much they’d want for shipping.

Which fitting kit you’d need is in here. If memory serves, the travel can be reduced to 80mm with spacers to make it work for 29er wheels.

Andy

As mentioned above I only ‘know’ specifically about Lefty Max’s, but that a Lefty Speed 110mm by the looks of things, an 07 or earlier unit (Mantiou damped) and the £850 one is a brand new PBR unit.
I ‘think’ it’s still slightly over priced, especially as you’ll probably need to get it serviced too, but you’d need to search the history and bike forums to get an accurate 2nd hand value on these things.
Offhand: 2011 PBR Speed for £500, and a Speed Carbon 110 Fox unit for £400 seemingly backs this up slightly.. the US eBay supplies the better bargains from what I’ve heard.

Can’t tell you about 29-er or 1 1/8 conversions, you’ll need to spend some time searching on the MTBR C’dale forum for all the info you’ll need.

OK, thanks for the advice. I’ve still got a lot to learn and I’m a bit lost with all the different models and adapters.
There’s not much information on Dr Cannondale’s or Cannondale’s own site to help.