manitou sx-r 2001 year fork

"Andy wilson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

My fork boots seem to be trapping more dirt in than they are keeping out, is it "safe" to remove
the boots altogether at the next service, the inner seals on the fork legs seem adequate enough
and the deletion of the boots will allow me to see and clean the forks better when they are
covered in mud/grit/grime

Perfectly "safe" -- yank 'em.

Bill "das (de) boot" S.

[email hidden] (Andy wilson) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

My fork boots seem to be trapping more dirt in than they are keeping out, is it "safe" to remove
the boots altogether at the next service, the inner seals on the fork legs seem adequate enough
and the deletion of the boots will allow me to see and clean the forks better when they are
covered in mud/grit/grime

Dear Andy,

What about new fork boots?

I know nothing about bicycle front suspension, but imagine that it resembles scaled-down motorycle
technology. Your boots don't sound as if they're doing their job.

A true motorcycle fork boot is homely full-length rubber accordion that protects the entire
polished fork with just enough of an air vent somewhere up high to avoid hilarious ballooning on
compression. Some dust gets in, but damned little. The rubber also offers the hard, highly
polished fork tubes some protection from nasty little rock chips and from the kind of low-speed
falls that leave a 225-pound motorcycle resting contentedly on a convenient rock (not a problem, I
hope, for a bicycle).

In 1976, a friend fitted his Honda trials bike with a pair of these ungainly devices.

I mocked him, since it was a lot of fuss and trouble and I imagined that my identical machine's
naked forks were well-protected by Honda's darling little rubber fork caps--the two-inch rubber
dinguses that you can pull off the lower fork leg and up the polished tube. They make a feeble
effort at wiping the dirt and mud and bird droppings and dust and pine bark and all off the
fork--after the debris hits.

Both kinds of rubber devices are meant to keep fine and not-so-fine grit from getting down into the
real seals, which are out of sight inside the lower fork leg and are good enough to allow running
just air-pressure instead of springs if you like.

My friend and I have been riding the same trails together on these bikes since we got them,
identical low-speed mountain hiking-trail stuff, a few times every summer.

His fork seals are still fine under the rubber boots. My third or fourth set is drooling again from
under my pathetic little decorative caps.

Maybe next year I'll try things his way. Full boots are a lot easier to replace than seals.

Just a thought.

Carl Fogel