Best MTB suspension fork or road and trail?



R

rocketman58

Guest
I am looking for a decent 80-100mm travel fork for my MTB. I ride
both road and moderate trails (no hard core stuff). I have a Manatou
Black fork 100-120mm travel - it is a great off road fork, but way
more fork than I need for the riding I do. I need less travel and
weight.

I like the idea of a coil spring better than air. But I want a light
fork, and all the light weight (under 3.5lbs) forks look to be air.
Is an air fork a better way to go for my use? Any problems with air
forks?
 
On 22 Sep 2004 09:22:27 -0700, [email protected]
(rocketman58) wrote:

>I am looking for a decent 80-100mm travel fork for my MTB. I ride
>both road and moderate trails (no hard core stuff). I have a Manatou
>Black fork 100-120mm travel - it is a great off road fork, but way
>more fork than I need for the riding I do. I need less travel and
>weight.
>
>I like the idea of a coil spring better than air. But I want a light
>fork, and all the light weight (under 3.5lbs) forks look to be air.
>Is an air fork a better way to go for my use? Any problems with air
>forks?


Get a Fox Float TALAS. Brilliant fork, easy to adjust, and made like a
proper piece of suspension hardware by a proper suspension company.


Kinky Cowboy*

*Batteries not included
May contain traces of nuts
Your milage may vary
 
rocketman58 said...

> I am looking for a decent 80-100mm travel fork for my MTB. I ride
> both road and moderate trails (no hard core stuff). I have a Manatou
> Black fork 100-120mm travel - it is a great off road fork, but way
> more fork than I need for the riding I do. I need less travel and
> weight.
>
> I like the idea of a coil spring better than air. But I want a light
> fork, and all the light weight (under 3.5lbs) forks look to be air.
> Is an air fork a better way to go for my use? Any problems with air
> forks?


Save your money and use the fork you have. It isn't a heavy fork at all,
and I don't understand why less travel is automatically a good thing
just because you don't use all of it. If you think the geometry will
drastically change, my experience has been that differences are actually
much more subtle than I thought they would be. After all, it is the same
bike. My Fax Vanilla (4.1 lb, coil) can be set up as 80, 100, or 125mm.
I came set up at 125mm out of the box. My riding style would indicate
that 80mm would be the correct setting. I set it up without changing the
travel just to get it rolling, and figured I would knock the travel down
ASAP. That was a year and a half ago. I just can't find a reason to get
my hands dirty turning the travel down. I just set the sag to the
maximum recommended. When I change the oil this winter, I'll set it to
80mm just to see what it is like, but it may or may not stay that way
for long. If your fork can be set to 100mm, I strongly doubt that you
will see an earth-shattering difference between 100mm and 80mm.

I second the other poster's recommendation for Fox, but none of the Fox
forks are especially light. You won't save much, if any, weight over the
fork you have, no matter which one you buy. But Fox forks all have 32mm
stanchion tubes and the increased stiffness is very, very noticeable
over my RockShox forks with 30mm tubes, and I'm 5'9" and 165lbs.
 
SuperSlinky <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...said:
> Save your money and use the fork you have. It isn't a heavy fork at all,
> and I don't understand why less travel is automatically a good thing
> just because you don't use all of it. If you think the geometry will
> drastically change, my experience has been that differences are actually
> much more subtle than I thought they would be. After all, it is the same
> bike. My Fax Vanilla (4.1 lb, coil) can be set up as 80, 100, or 125mm.
> I came set up at 125mm out of the box. My riding style would indicate
> that 80mm would be the correct setting. I set it up without changing the
> travel just to get it rolling, and figured I would knock the travel down
> ASAP. That was a year and a half ago. I just can't find a reason to get
> my hands dirty turning the travel down. I just set the sag to the
> maximum recommended. When I change the oil this winter, I'll set it to
> 80mm just to see what it is like, but it may or may not stay that way
> for long. If your fork can be set to 100mm, I strongly doubt that you
> will see an earth-shattering difference between 100mm and 80mm.
>
> I second the other poster's recommendation for Fox, but none of the Fox
> forks are especially light. You won't save much, if any, weight over the
> fork you have, no matter which one you buy. But Fox forks all have 32mm
> stanchion tubes and the increased stiffness is very, very noticeable
> over my RockShox forks with 30mm tubes, and I'm 5'9" and 165lbs.



I ride a 14" Ti hardtail. I would have chosen an 80-100mm fork, but I
already had the 100-120 Black sitting around. Ya, it looks like
4.2lbs is not too bad compared to all the other coil spring shocks.
All the lighter forks are air. I still like the reliability of coil
spring forks. Riding off road, the fork works well with the rest of
the bike. At 110mm and 4.2 lbs, it is a little more than I would have
prefered while riding on the road (about 50% of the time with a 2nd
set of wheels with narrow slick tires.)

The Black's 100-120mm travel adjustment is not like it would seem.
Spring compression and travel is adjusted all in one. Set at 100mm,
the sring compression is all the way in (stiff). Set at 120mm, the
spring compression is all the way out (soft). Set for me, I have a
110mm travel fork. I never use all the travel, but I could use a
little more top tube clearance. An 80mm fork would drop the top tube
about an inch on the front.

Everything said, I think I will just live with what I have. Maybe
something more to my liking will come available by the time I wear
this one out.
 
rocketman58 said...

> I ride a 14" Ti hardtail. I would have chosen an 80-100mm fork, but I
> already had the 100-120 Black sitting around. Ya, it looks like
> 4.2lbs is not too bad compared to all the other coil spring shocks.
> All the lighter forks are air. I still like the reliability of coil
> spring forks. Riding off road, the fork works well with the rest of
> the bike. At 110mm and 4.2 lbs, it is a little more than I would have
> prefered while riding on the road (about 50% of the time with a 2nd
> set of wheels with narrow slick tires.)
>
> The Black's 100-120mm travel adjustment is not like it would seem.
> Spring compression and travel is adjusted all in one. Set at 100mm,
> the sring compression is all the way in (stiff). Set at 120mm, the
> spring compression is all the way out (soft). Set for me, I have a
> 110mm travel fork. I never use all the travel, but I could use a
> little more top tube clearance. An 80mm fork would drop the top tube
> about an inch on the front.
>
> Everything said, I think I will just live with what I have. Maybe
> something more to my liking will come available by the time I wear
> this one out.


Oh, you didn't say it was a racey Ti hardtail. I'll concede that a
100mm+ coil fork is a little bit of a mismatch there, but there really
isn't much to be gained by spending the money on an 80mm air fork. It
would bring the weight down by a half pound or so and would give you
quicker geometry, but after you spend the hundreds of dollars and see
that it didn't really change the bike much, it may seem like a large and
needless expense. There are lots of advantages to coil forks with the
only disadvantage being weight. If you ever do get that air fork, take
note that the racing forks with 28mm stanchions are notoriously flexy.
And since I was able to compare a 30mm stanchion to a 32mm stanchion
after buying the Fox, I won't ever go back. I don't care if a SID World
Cup does only weigh 2.6lbs, if I ever buy an air fork, it will be a
3.6lb Fox with the big tubes that just work better.