fitting rigid forks

ben_250

Hi,

My commuter currently has a pair rox shox duke xc on, they are however worn out and useless. I want to fit a pair of rigid forks, to save on weight etc.

Is there a certain size i will need? do i need to allow for the fact that the bike came with suspension? Is the steerer tube a standard size?

so many questions! does anyone know of a good pair of budget rigid forks, or where to get them from?

Thanks

Ben

Drfabulous0

To keep the geometry of your bike the same you want to measure the axle to crown length of your current forks then minus the sag the forks usually run at (probably around 20mm). I'm guessing this will give you a length of around 434mm, order some forks of the same length or as close to as possible. Obviosly you can take the oportunity to raise or lower the front end a little if you want to but I would strongly reccomend that you don't change it by more than 25mm at most as it might make your bike feel awful. You can fine tune the handlebar position afterwards by messing around with spacers.
I used to have a mountainbike for commuting and some very light XC with a Planet X Kniffen fork. It was insanely stiff and tough on the wrists, even with carbon bars, but it was exteremely light compared to a suspension fork and it made the bike feel really lively and climb like a mountain goat. In the end I went back to suspension forks with a remote lockout.