rigid carbon forks

mancjon

Hi all

I currently ride a Trek 8000 (2007) hardtail which has reba front forks. Mainly XC, definitely no DH or anything like that !

I am toying with the idea of replacing reba forks with a rigid carbon fork because -

1) make the bike lighter
2) easier maintenance
3) the simplicity of it kind of appeals to me

So i was wondering if there are any people here who ride a carbon rigid fork and how well (or not) it performs. I appreciate it won't be as smooth as using front suspension but just how manageable is it, and how much fun.

Thanks

Jon

supersonic

Have a look at the Exotic forks at carbon cycles.

ride_whenever

it's doable, bigger tyres will help as well as will low pressures and/or a tubeless setup.


Personally i'd do it, cheap cf forks aren't hugely dear, and if you don't like it pop the rebas back on and sell the cf ones second hand.

Andy

LOL Sonic loves his Exotic parts!

I have a Yeti Arc with rigid carbon forks (Ritchey WCS) and its great. Obviously it is hard work on the arms over the really bumpy stuff but it has the same effect as a hardtail vs full sus on the rear, you learn to move the bike over it and pick the smoother lines to compensate.

Not sure I'd go with rigids instead of suspension forks but nice option to have on a second (or third or fourth ) bike

Raymondavalon

There are a few existing Threads on this very subject:

Thread 1: Exotic alloy rigid forks (they also make carbon forks and this was covered)

Thread 2: Rigid forks for singletrack

I replaced the 100mm travel forks on my Diamondback HT (commuter) with eXotic carbon forks. They do shed weight, but the feedback on the bars was very noticeable. I do like them and believe them to be ideal for the commuting I do on this bike, but personally I prefer front suspension for offroad use
The eXotic products are well made and a bargain for the price.

RealMan

The best rigid carbon forks are Pace RC31s. Very light, very stiff, very strong.



Unfortunately, they aren't made any more, so you have to get them 2nd hand.

Andy

I'd disagree with the Pace. I found them to be very flexy and give vague steering.

RealMan

Really? I've only ridden them a few times, but they always seem brilliant, and all the guys I know who have them think the same. What sort of set up were you running with them?

Andy

It was on a GT Zaskar frame with 160mm hope minis. Was Hope-Mavic wheels and just never got on with them. Have since tried several other carbon rigids and all seem a fair bit stiffer.

The Northern Monkey

on-one carbon forks are cheap but very strong... can't say how they ride though as I haven't fitted them yet... expect them to be a bit harsher that others though.

mancjon

Thanks for all the replies guys

I was thinking of the NukeProof carbon forks as they seem to get good reviews and are pretty light. To be honest i also suspect i need to actually take the time to fiddle with the rebas. I started mtb with a hardrock rigid and used that for about 3 years before upgrading to 8000.

Although the overall difference between the 2 bikes was huge the fork was the most disappointing thing and i can't say it felt that much better although i suspect it should.

Jon

snig

I heard the nukeproofs are the same fork as the exotic forks just under a differant name? so see which are cheaper.

Raymondavalon

snig wrote:

I heard the nukeproofs are the same fork as the exotic forks just under a differant name? so see which are cheaper.

I've read that too, visually they are identical products, so if you're prepared to "pay for a name" Nukeproof it is..

bomberesque

I have the Nukeproof forks on my Tranny

actually, more accurate to say is that I HAD them on my Tranny. I replaced them with SID Teams a couple of weeks back. Here's the why;

I previously rode for 2 years on a 1990 C'dale Frame with Identity tuning forks, which is what made me think about the nukeproofs for the tranny in the first place. they are light (800gr on my scales) and very sharp looking. btw; afaik Nuke proofs come from the same factory as just about all the other straight carbon legged forks out there. I don't know if there's a difference in the lay up between On-one, Exxotic, Pace (as were) NP etc etc but the weights are almost all the same (I've seen some 1kg "jump" carbon forks out tere, but the rest all seem to be 800 +/-) so I'm going with they're all fundamentally the same fork. The NP has Nuke symbols in the dropouts though, which makes it the better fork

So; what went wrong?

the NPs certainly deliver on weight and trail buzz is quite nicely dealt with but steel also performs this task rather well (I would say the tuning forks were better trailbuzz insulators than the NPs). The problem with the Identities is they are 1400 gr :shock: although the Rev2s are advertised at 1100 iirc. Where the NPs really failed for me compared to the Identites was in lateral stiffness. They're nowhere near as stiff and they don't feel anywhere near as solid, which led me to ride them more cautiously than I wanted to. This is quite possibly a function of length as well as weight/material. The identities are a non corrected fork, 395mm A2C, whereas the NPs are 445 A2C. bending stresses in a cantilever are proportional to the square of the length so, roughly, an increase in A2C of 12.5% will lead to an increase of bending moment at the crown of nearly 30% (if I got that wrong then feel free to correct me, it's pre-coffee atm so my brain is a bit woolly ). Combine that with the lighter weight build and it's totally predictable that the NPs would be less stiff than the Identities. The feeling of a lack of strength is a very subjective one, although possibly a result of the stiffness issue. All I can say for sure is that it made me ride much more cautiously than I had with the identities, which was the opposite of what I was after with this bike.

Because the Tranny is a seriously stiff and strong feeling frame, it felt very mismatched to me, plus I knew that I wouldn't have the confidence to commit the NP to some of the trail riding that I plan to do with this bike (The belgian Ardennes ... think Nrth Downs-y) so I decided to change out for the SID. And I'm very glad I did. It's quite possibly demonstrable that the SID is no stiffer statically than the NP, but add in the suspension action and they are just different worlds.

so, what would I do differently if I still wanted a rigid bike? I would get a Titanium or steel curved blade fork instead of a carbon one. Of course that means you're likely to only save 4-500gr over a light XC 100mm fork like the SID but those are the choices you have to make... Rigid riding is an interesting discipline and it's certainly true that it pushes you to choose cleaner and more precise lines. If you do this a lot, you will find it allows you to properly select much more aggressive lines on a HT/FS so I agree with one of the posters that fully rigid is a great idea for a 2nd/3rd bike, but I wouldn't have it as my only one.

btw andrew156; Yeti ARC and a Richey WCS? how'd you get on with that? I had a WCS on order ofr the tranny originally but cancelled as I found out it has a very short A2C (409 according to the manual) and IBIS said it would be too short for the frame

Salsa

Bit early in the morning for me to write a full reply on why I love rigids but I sold my Fox RLT's & am not going back.
Pace/Exotic straight legged style are longer than Ritchey/Trigon/Token style forks but the Pace style are way more flexy & don't steer or track anywhere near as well.
The pace style look better but perform a whole lot worse. For general single track xc they are fine but for more aggressive riding they are obviously compromised compared to a sus fork.
Don't forget you have your body as suspension, I can float over fast bumps by raising my body off the seat a little & use my arms/legs to absorb the worst of it. Your bike loses a couple of pounds over a light sus fork with a Ritchey style fork, they work best with carbon controls (bars/post) though for the added comfort.
You do need to change the way you ride by choosing lines, this is made easier by the fact your bikes angles are FIXED & therefore way more predictable. You may find that like me it becomes more fun as you concentrate & become one with the bike a bit more, theres no more steaming over everything in a straight line using your suspension to do all the work.
Some stuff your going to be slower over but other stuff you will be faster over.
It makes your bike lighter but personally I don't think that makes a lot of difference until you get towards the 20lb mark, once you get near that your bike feels a bit skittish but if your experienced the bike is so precise it feels so great to ride.
I'm not going back, the only thing that would tempt me would be a top end xc full sus bike but I'd still keep my rigid

Andy

bomberesque

It is quite a short fork but the frame is designed closer to 80mm travel than 100mm anyway so it works quite well. They are lighter than any of the other carbon rigids I have seen and the best I have ridden for my relatively heavy weight.

supersonic

You have to be careful with some steel and ti forks too - some flex like russian ballet dancers.

For carbon, you can't go wrong with the exotic.

blister pus

Except they should up the weight limit up a bit on them

Turveyd38

OLD THREAD by the way.


Using Carbon Exotics with the 3" Arrow Savage Tyres and there great so far, I'm 16lb's over the weight and running 203mm disks

Don't aid much in hitting stuff compared to On One Steel forks, but landing stuff there is a nice up bend and really takes the sting out.

scale20

I run On one carbon rigids on my scandal 29er and I love it. For the past 4 months it has been my only bike so have been riding it on most stuff.

4 Months ago I had a pace 506 sat next to it and for some reson I always opted to take the rigid out, I find that rigid makes the ride much more interesting. As its been said above you have to learn to read the trail again and gets you working mentally, on the FS you just smash through everything!

On initialy going rigid I found it hard but you soon get used to getting the feel for the bike and how to use your arms and body to take the buz out. The big wheel and tyre on my 29er up front takes a lot of buz out.

I have found that rigid forks can make some fast singletrack turns interesting, you dont have the compression and damping of sus forks so it gets the adrenalin going when your front wheel is skipping round a turn

I have a full sus 29er build in progress but Im not sure i will want to ride it :?

Northwind

Rigid forks are a great laugh... And it's not like it takes long to swap a fork so you don't even need a "rigid bike", if you've got a hardtail then all you need is the fork. Oh and possibly a bigger front tyre Makes easy trails hard and old trails new. Really glad I got my exotics.