The plan is to switch out the suspension forks for rigid ones. Three good reason to do this:
- Performance -The suspension on a bike actually works against the rider on hard surfaces as some of the pedaling energy is absorbed by the suspension rather that being transmitted to the rear wheel. I expect this is more applicable to full (front and rear) suspension bikes.
- Weight - Suspension forks are simply heavier than rigid ones.
- Fenders - Much easier to mount full fenders or front racks on rigid forks.
Replacing suspension forks with rigid ones is not as easy as finding some old rigid MTB forks and jamming the into place. Doing this would mess with the original bike's frame geometry. If you look at the distance from the top of the tire to the crown of the suspension fork you will notice it is 3-6" to allow for the movement for the wheel as it is pushed into the suspension. Rigid forks on older MTBs or on road bikes have much less clearance as the wheel does not move relative to the fork. Therefore, to maintain the correct frame geometry a longer rigid fork is required. This is know as a 'Suspension Corrected' fork.
Suspension corrected forks are a bit of a specialized item and wound be the most pricey component of this project. I wanted to keep the front disc brake so the replacement would need to have the mounts for this.
Bike Nashbar sells this item online for about $60 US but I also found a pair at the Bike Doctor in Vancouver for $119 CAD. When I factored in the exchange rate, shipping and duty the price was pretty much a saw off so I picked up the local ones.
The new fork has the mounts for either caliper or disc brake mounts. I would guess there is approximate two pound weight savings with the rigid fork over the old suspension one.
Installing a new set of forks requires these be dry fitted and then hacksaw the fork tube down to size to fit. I had to think about this because another goal of this project is to raise the handlebar height and this is the time for contemplation... The current setup has the bars about 2" below the saddle height. This worked for me for trail riding but for the new street incarnation I wanted to bring the height up flush to the saddle height as this is how my Bike Friday is configured and it really works for me. After exploring replacement stems (wound not work) and doing a little research I purchased stem spacers ($1 each) which fit over the fork tube between the headset and handlebar stem and allow for the stem to be fitted higher up the tube.
Adding the spacers allowed me to raise the stem/bars six centimeters and happened to put stem in just the right position on the tube that no hack sawing of the tube was required. How often do things work out like that?
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| Original lower setup |
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| New higher bars |
Attaching and adjusting the front disc brake caliper was very straightforward.
On my test flight the forks worked just great! After riding the 20" wheel Bike Friday this seemed a very smooth ride on the gravel roads.
Which fork did you end up getting? I'm in the USA and can order from nashbar, but don't know what size fork to get for the same bike. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHey Shaka. These forks are kind of generic and I bought them at a local bike shop here in Vancouver. I remember at the time looking at the Nashbar ones and they would have worked too but it is an international sale which is a bit of a pain for me.
DeleteRandy