Road suspension

[georgew]

The roads round here are awful, especially when you get off the main roads. So I was wondering have any road based suspension forks been produced that are particularly good for a 700c wheel? Moulton is supposed to be very good, but alas not for a 700c wheel. I suppose about 40mm or so of travel would sort out the worst of it, which can still give you a good jolt with 38mm tyres run at low pressure.

It is very good....so good in fact that the Moulton suspension is the one thing that has enabled me to keep cycling.

[Sweep]

I have a Cannondale Sport Road Headshok, a development on the silk road, which is very good at absorbing the vibrations from poor surfaces and even modest potholes. The travel is 25mm and unlike mtb suspension it is quite subtle - a bit like driving a car in that you're not really aware of the suspension doing its job. Servicing has to be done by an approved dealer and I used to take it in once a year (cost about £60) until the mechanic asked why I'd brought it in when it was working OK! "Bring it back when it starts to feel a bit notchy" he said - that was about 3 years ago! It certainly makes a huge difference if you have problems with your hands/wrists.

Jessand, that sounds very like mine. I agree that it is very good. But servicing did start to prove complicated. Last time a nice polish guy at on yer bike london bridge did it but he moved on and they don't do it anymore. Neither do Evans who i bought the bike from.Do you have this list? Anyone in london? The last time i enquired about it with cannondale i ended up speaking to some guy in holland who was completely useless.

The "recommended service interval" on my unit is, i discovered on checking the legalistic manual, something appalling. Something like every few hours of riding. Luckily, as you say, in practice, it lasts a hell of a lot longer.

It is a very good system, though because of the complications, and as i get older, i still prefer rubber and air.

[531colin]

............. as i get older, i still prefer rubber and air.

Steady on! Family show and all that....or is it just me?.....

[Sweep]

It's you colin

Either that or you have been getting your cycling/sex wires crossed over the greenoil thread i have just asked for guidance on.

All the best.

[Brucey]

re servicing headshocks; if you wait until it 'feels a bit notchy' it'll most likely be jiggered by the time you do anything about it. There are linear roller bearings inside which will corrode, wear and clap out if the slightest amount of water gets in. If you do nothing else make sure that the lower boot is intact and that there is nice clean grease in the bearings.

However the main failing of many headshocks has often been the damper itself. Basically any unit that is small enough to fit inside the head tube (along with a spring of some kind) probably isn't really big enough to take all the punishment. Think about fitting all the gubbins from two fork legs into half the space.... On several models of headshock the dampers can die horribly and even ones that are only a few years old are difficult or impossible to find parts for, or indeed people who want to fix them even when parts are available.

Thus IMHO the headshock is one of those things that is a nice idea in principle, actually works quite well when it works, but is in some respects flawed in practice. FWIW I think they should perhaps have licensed the design to other manufacturers and then it would have been a better product with more choice for the customer.

cheers

[BigG]

Front suspension is usually engineered to give the lowest possible unsprung mass thus keeping the wheel in the best contact with the ground. The road suspensions discussed here are generally required to ease the shocks on the rider and the unsprung mass is thus at the other end of the fork/frame/bar combination. There used to be stems available to achieve this. The Girvan stem worked to some extent but the best was a full suspension system from Outland distributed by Raleigh (IIRC). This works extremely well in my experience but has the effect of rotating the bars as they drop - as does the Girvan stem. It may look like a parallelogram system but is actually a simple pivot. This takes some getting used to. More important perhaps is that any riding position that puts extra weight on the bars both lowers them (no problem) but also rotates them. I only stopped using them because the reach and rise did not suit my frame.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I found that this type soaked up minor bumps well.
Lower leg fork suspension needs lots of maintenance I have found.
Just try and find any manuals? Design models change weekly.
As said low (weight) unsprung parts gives better performance.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Girvin-Flexst ... Swf-VWaMe5

[nez]

Wouldn't 28 or 30mm tyres be a more practical approach if you can fit them on your road bike? Flexible stems seem to me to imply all sorts of complications.

[BigG]

Yes, bigger tyres would have a similar effect but would give a maximum of about 25 mm movement - and probably much less than that if you wanted to avoid the risk of snake bite punctures or rim damage. The Girvin stem has a similar movement but the Outland/Raleigh stem doubles this. The only real complication is that ultimately wear on the pivots would make the stem unpleasant in use.

[531colin]

OP is on 38mm tyres already.

[fatboy]

I swapped out my Dawes Horizon frame (with 1" quill stem but strange triangular down tube, 520 steel) for a Spa Steel Tourer and it's more comfy over bumps so I'd reckon that geometry is most important. The Horizon fork is more whippy than the Spa but still less comfy.

In terms of advise I'd deflate the front tyre a bit. When I used 700x35 I ran 65 back, 50 front which was much more confy than 65 freont and back.

If you're already doing that try some less harsh tyres (e.g. Randonneur Hypers, no personal experience but seem rated).

[Brucey]

IIRC the OEM tyres on the OP's model are marathons. If I wanted more comfort those would be the first things to be changed.

cheers

[BigG]

Am I the only old timer who regrets the passing of the steeply swept curve at the bottom of 1940s-1950s front forks. My Freddie Grubb still has these and the sharp bend in springy tubing avoids (well, greatly reduces) the need for any additional suspension artifacts.

[blackbike]

I'm not anti-suspension. I spent £500 on front suspension forks for my MTB in 1995. Although antiquated by modern standards they still serve me well off-road.

But I can't see the need for suspension of any kind on the road.

When you are young it is pointless and unnecessary.

As you get older you naturally go slower and the bumps and potholes are not hit with such force.

Apart from a minority of people with special sensitivities brought about by age related frailness or disability I don't think any road cyclist needs any suspension at all.