Suspension

[CinnabarMoth]

I recently built my first mountain bike with suspension forks, 100mm travel. Suits me fine for exploring byeways and bridleways not complaining at all given what I have been used to riding on with rigid forks for decades ,but I am curious about what it's like to ride longer travel forks, say 120 to 130mm. Is there a down side to having longer travel forks? Does it become harder to get up the hills?

[Pinkie]

I recently built my first mountain bike with suspension forks, 100mm travel. Suits me fine for exploring byeways and bridleways not complaining at all given what I have been used to riding on with rigid forks for decades ,but I am curious about what it's like to ride longer travel forks, say 120 to 130mm. Is there a down side to having longer travel forks? Does it become harder to get up the hills?

They are more fashion than use, unless your doing something fairly extreme( and spend a lot of money), they do wallow a lot and soak up peddle power, unless you lock them up and then its pointless having them, what they are good at is rolling up 6inch pavement edging

I'm also very happy with 100mm travel, I wouldnt be sad if I got a bike with 120mm I'd just stiffen them up, I have no use for more than that that's worth the extra bobble, cost and weight

Tou can tell from the dirt on your fork leg how much travel your using, if your only commonly using 75mm of what you have you dont need longer, if your bottoming it out every 5 mins it might be worth considering

[CinnabarMoth]

They are more fashion than use, unless your doing something fairly extreme( and spend a lot of money), they do wallow a lot and soak up peddle power, unless you lock them up and then its pointless having them, what they are good at is rolling up 6inch pavement edging

I'm also very happy with 100mm travel, I wouldnt be sad if I got a bike with 120mm I'd just stiffen them up, I have no use for more than that that's worth the extra bobble, cost and weight

Tou can tell from the dirt on your fork leg how much travel your using, if your only commonly using 75mm of what you have you dont need longer, if your bottoming it out every 5 mins it might be worth considering

Thanks that's about what I suspected. I've seen some go-pro footage of riders going uphill or even on the flat with suspension unlocked and it does look like the front is bobing up and down with the pedal strokes.

[Pinkie]

They are more fashion than use, unless your doing something fairly extreme( and spend a lot of money), they do wallow a lot and soak up peddle power, unless you lock them up and then its pointless having them, what they are good at is rolling up 6inch pavement edging

I'm also very happy with 100mm travel, I wouldnt be sad if I got a bike with 120mm I'd just stiffen them up, I have no use for more than that that's worth the extra bobble, cost and weight

Tou can tell from the dirt on your fork leg how much travel your using, if your only commonly using 75mm of what you have you dont need longer, if your bottoming it out every 5 mins it might be worth considering

Thanks that's about what I suspected. I've seen some go-pro footage of riders going uphill or even on the flat with suspension unlocked and it does look like the front is bobing up and down with the pedal strokes.

It depend on what you actual want to use your bike for, there has been a significant rise in gravity assisted trail parks with trucks to run you back up the hill, there are some very specialised and exspensive bike that are exceptional at going down hill fast a little less at going up hill, but then it's only a mile or so if you end up peddling.

Settng off on a 20 miles mixed ride out on them is likely to be quite hard work.

Then there is a whole load of bikes that are styled as trail bikes but really are not, but if you messing about in the local woods they are fine but big suspension and boost tyres dont make them idea for actually going places, but certainly you could

Most people who decided they need bigger suspension actually need better suspension, but that is 1quite expensive, so b9g and cheap they go and end up with a pogo stick

[CinnabarMoth]

I'm an old man who just likes pootling about the countryside on the byeways/bridleways etc. I live in Wiltshire so lots of chalk tracks over the downs, I bought a used Kona Lanai because it has one of the few frames that fits me most mountain bikes seem to be too short. It was too heavy so I rebuilt with lighter stuff and replaced the Suntour fork with Rockshox Reba RL which is lighter and works so much better.

[Pinkie]

I'm an old man who just likes pootling about the countryside on the byeways/bridleways etc. I live in Wiltshire so lots of chalk tracks over the downs, I bought a used Kona Lanai because it has one of the few frames that fits me most mountain bikes seem to be too short. It was too heavy so I rebuilt with lighter stuff and replaced the Suntour fork with Rockshox Reba RL which is lighter and works so much better.

Good choice of fork, that is one of the best youl get and coincidentally what I have as well

[Pinkie]

I'm an old man who just likes pootling about the countryside on the byeways/bridleways etc. I live in Wiltshire so lots of chalk tracks over the downs, I bought a used Kona Lanai because it has one of the few frames that fits me most mountain bikes seem to be too short. It was too heavy so I rebuilt with lighter stuff and replaced the Suntour fork with Rockshox Reba RL which is lighter and works so much better.

Good choice of fork, that is one of the best youl get and coincidentally what I have as well, well mines the dual air, which takes twice as long to pump up

[CinnabarMoth]

I got Solo Air, didn't know there were different options, bikes aren't simple any more.
I'm wondering how do you tell when the fork needs servicing? I'm not likely to try it myself and a specialist fork service costs around £100 so really don't want to be having them done any more frequently than needed!

[Maillot Rouge]

20-30% of your travel should be taken up if you have the correct sag for your weight,Sag is set by adding or removing air or tweaking the preload if it's a coil fork.Pedal-bob will still be present to some extent but in more expensive forks it is less noticable.I have 140mm forks on my hard tail and 160mm on my full suspension.I have sag set at 30% on both bikes and there is almost no pedal-bob.
If I were to be just pootling about then 100mm would be OK.
Re servicing.
My forks,both X-Fusion recommend every 12 months.At £500 and £800 it makes sense to do so and I do it myself as £100+ for basically oils and seals is excessive.It costs me less than £20 to do both.
On cheaper forks,<£200 I personally would just ride them until they stopped working,which could be years if just used lightly.
I used to service my 200mm Down hill forks every few months but they took a real battering.

[Stevek76]

For bridleways and the like certainly no need for anything more.

As far as pedal Bob goes, I find the 150mm pikes on my present MTB bob less than the 100mm recon silver tks on my old bike but I think that's more a function of geometry, the head angle is rather slacker on modern trail bikes and when I'm slogging up a forest road in the saddle I don't really don't put much weight on the front too make it bob about. The threshold switch on the rear shock makes a massive difference to pedaling efficiency though.


Service wise. In theory, rockshox recommend a lowers service every 50hrs and a full service every 200hrs. In practice, particularly as you're not doing anything wild I'd probably only bother if there was stiction affecting the fork's sensitivity.

The aforementioned recon silvers went 8 years without any service at all and were fine. I only took them apart because the lockout had stopped working.

If you do your own maintenance for other bits then you could consider doing it yourself, particularly the lowers only service is not a tricky thing to do.


As an aside. Dual air was an older thing that no longer exists in rockshox line up, for dual air, both sides of the spring piston are independently pumped up, for solo there's a little dent on the inside that allows the pressure of the two chambers to equalise at a certain point in the fork's travel.

[Pinkie]

For bridleways and the like certainly no need for anything more.

As far as pedal Bob goes, I find the 150mm pikes on my present MTB bob less than the 100mm recon silver tks on my old bike but I think that's more a function of geometry, the head angle is rather slacker on modern trail bikes and when I'm slogging up a forest road in the saddle I don't really don't put much weight on the front too make it bob about. The threshold switch on the rear shock makes a massive difference to pedaling efficiency though.


Service wise. In theory, rockshox recommend a lowers service every 50hrs and a full service every 200hrs. In practice, particularly as you're not doing anything wild I'd probably only bother if there was stiction affecting the fork's sensitivity.

The aforementioned recon silvers went 8 years without any service at all and were fine. I only took them apart because the lockout had stopped working.

If you do your own maintenance for other bits then you could consider doing it yourself, particularly the lowers only service is not a tricky thing to do.


As an aside. Dual air was an older thing that no longer exists in rockshox line up, for dual air, both sides of the spring piston are independently pumped up, for solo there's a little dent on the inside that allows the pressure of the two chambers to equalise at a certain point in the fork's travel.

Yes it suffers from the annoying trait of being near infinitely adjustable. Now if I just drop the rebound half a pound......

[CinnabarMoth]

Service wise. In theory, rockshox recommend a lowers service every 50hrs and a full service every 200hrs. In practice, particularly as you're not doing anything wild I'd probably only bother if there was stiction affecting the fork's sensitivity.

The aforementioned recon silvers went 8 years without any service at all and were fine. I only took them apart because the lockout had stopped working.

So basically I'm safe to just leave it untill I notice a drop off in performance ? No danger of any permanent damage from neglect ?Not too keen on servicing myself as I don't have an inside space with any kind of bench. I'm happy to do other stuff myself and stripped and rebuilt the bike but I installed good quality mechanical brakes so I would not have to deal with any messy oils.

[Stevek76]

Unless you've been really punishing them then yes, there's not much that can go wrong. At least, assuming they've been put together properly, which can be a bit of a lottery at the moment, my Pike forks were very under oiled and under greased! And that you don't store the bike in adverse conditions that might damage the seals.

There should be very little/no stiction when in use, if you put increasing weight on the bars, the fork should gradually and smoothly compress rather than you have to put a certain amount of weight on and then it suddenly moves.

The main risk is gritty/sandy muck on the stanchions getting past the seals, so mostly make sure the seals aren't damaged and don't leave the stanchions caked in muck (fixing on a small mudguard under the arch isn't a bad idea)

[CinnabarMoth]

Unless you've been really punishing them then yes, there's not much that can go wrong. At least, assuming they've been put together properly, which can be a bit of a lottery at the moment, my Pike forks were very under oiled and under greased! And that you don't store the bike in adverse conditions that might damage the seals.

There should be very little/no stiction when in use, if you put increasing weight on the bars, the fork should gradually and smoothly compress rather than you have to put a certain amount of weight on and then it suddenly moves.

The main risk is gritty/sandy muck on the stanchions getting past the seals, so mostly make sure the seals aren't damaged and don't leave the stanchions caked in muck (fixing on a small mudguard under the arch isn't a bad idea)

Thanks for those tips. I have mudguards fitted and for the front I can make an extra shield to protect the stanchions. My bikes have to live outside under a big tarp, seems to keep the weather off well enough.

[mattsccm]

Good suspension properly set up will offer few of the disadvantages suggested. Your need or more likely want of the benefits is up to you. If you are fining the limits of your forks you eed more suspension and better quality forks.