designed to have equal travel at both ends?

I mean there are plenty of people who run hardtails with 4″ 5″ & 6″ travel, would it not be beneficial to produce full sussers with perhaps 1″,2″ or 3″ at the back just to take the edge off but keep it stiff enough for a hardtail feel.

I know Aaron Chase had something Cannondale made which was a sort of a soft tail with a lefty for a top tube, will anything like that ever make mass production?

I’m tempted to stick some 180mm travel forks on an Orange Blood, does that help you?

hhmm. that’s certainly an interesting question. you do get bikes with a 20mm difference between front and back, but i know that’s not what you are talking about. certainly i have seen a few people take a 100mm travel 4x frame and put 140s or 160s on front for the exact reason you are stating – taking the edge off the bumps at the rear but big-hit capability at the front. i guess the reason is that bikes of this style are maybe to niche a market? it’s possibly something left to the botique companies, and hence we wont have heard of the frames. my transition bottlerocket, with 140mm rear travel has warrenty for 100mm-200mm forks, so you can do what you want with it.
jeez, i really didn’t mean for my post to be this long…

I think we are starting to see more and more full sussers that dont follow that rule. In answer to your q I would speculate balance?

I’m tempted to stick some 140mm travel forks on an Orange Sub 3, does that help you? 😮

Ask Brant 😉

The hemlock is advertised that way. You can run long forks up front and short rocker at the back.

Q – Member

I’m tempted to stick some 140mm travel forks on an Orange Sub 3, does that help you?

Didn’t someone at STW towers do that last year?

Currently got my boxxer 151 forks (guess the travel….) on the front of my kona howler frame (100mm travel). Only put them on there because I needed the pikes that were on it for my XC bike, but it’s great! 20mm extra travel, without any extra handlebar or bb height.

Just as the original post said, the 4″ of fairly stiff travel takes the sting out of everything and (probably more importantly for me) keeps the back wheel stuck to the floor in corners and under braking.

As GNARGNAR says, the answer is generally “balance”

The idea behind full sus in the first place being that you could go over rougher terrain faster. Having more travel at one end than the other would not provide any particular benefits because of inability the shorter end to absorb the bump as well.

Unbalanced travel bikes have always existed though, and are becoming a bit more popular again. The thoughts behind a lot of these, are like as you say, a lot of people run hardtails with a 4 or 5 inch travel fork, so why do we need as much suspension on the back?

Well we don’t always, particularly if we want a lighter bike that sprints better. My XC full sus bike has shorter travel out back than up front, but then I like having long travel forks even on a hardtail. It also allows be to attack the DH’s a bit faster than I could on a shorter travel fork. But if it’s all out bump eating performance and balance you’re after, matched travel front and rear makes sense (and to that end my long travel full sus bike has matched travel within a few mm at least).

Interesting thoughts.

On my FS is 150mm at the back and 140mm at the rear, however I’m about to drop a set of 160mm forks on the front. should be nice

My last couple of FS bikes have had 3.7″ rear travel. I recently put on a 130mm fork, and immediately wound it down to 115mm, chances are I’ll eventually settle at ‘about 100’, 6″ travel bikes are for the alps aren’t they?

😉

To further muddy the waters obviously most forks regardless of travel will have different axle to crown height and so two forks with the same travel will influence the geo differently. Personally I think quality of rear travel rather than quantity and obviously geometry are much more important than x inches. Something like a bottlerocket imo is much more fit for purpose and makes more sense to me than something like the SC Nomad.

Tried my 106mm of rear travel Trance with 100mm & up to 130mm at the front,it’s better with 130mm imo.The NRS rides better with 120mm forks than it did with 100mm too.Both climb fine still too….