'97 Trek 8000 fork upgrade advice needed

[nicolaim]

I have a '97 Trek 8000 with Rock Shox Indy SL (elastomer, 63 mm travel.) The bike is still doing great, but I'd like to upgrade to a more sophisticated (but still lightweight) suspension fork (for XC riding.) I'm hoping someone can give me some idea of which fork models (likely older ones) would fit this bike without greatly altering the geometry/handling. Most forks have dropouts forward of the midline and fork legs forward of the steerer midline, whereas mine are all close to in-line, so I'm worried that alone will mess things up.

 

[alfeng]

My recollection is that the offset on your RockShox Indy fork is in the 'shoulder' ... you can substitute any post-2000 fork ...

FWIW. I have a Marzocchi BOMBER fork on my old Hardtail.

 

[psufan12]

Id try the Rock Shox Tora 318 coil u-turn ($250)
or Rock Shox Reba SL ($475)

 

[nicolaim]

Update: I scored a really cheap 2000 Rock Shox SID XC which has a barely longer axle-to-crown length. It's heavier (1400g vs 1233g) but I can feel the improvement immediately. A nice bonus is the ability to switch to a disc brake if I ever want to. The story isn't over yet, because before I got the SID I had bought a 2005 Fox F100 RLT adjusted to 80 mm travel with spacers on eBay, so when it shows up I'll have to figure out if that one is too long or not, and whether the extra weight (another 150g more) is worth it.

 

[emrenakipoglu]

I think you will get a new biycle... Because it's old and it must be so weight... I think you should get a whistle 4300 or giant xtc team maybe marin ...