Suspension Forks........
cheehee
Posts: 427
Right first off I don't want to get suspension forks on my road bike. 
I was looking at Cycling Plus and on page 142 there is a photo of a chap riding with Rockshox suspension forks on his bike.
What was all that about?
Was it something that was trialled for the cobbled roads and then scrapped?
It's the first time I've ever seen it.
Cheers
Cheehee
I was looking at Cycling Plus and on page 142 there is a photo of a chap riding with Rockshox suspension forks on his bike.
What was all that about?
Was it something that was trialled for the cobbled roads and then scrapped?
It's the first time I've ever seen it.
Cheers
Cheehee
0
Comments
-
haven't seen the pic you refer to, but in the early/mid 90s, some of the teams did experiment with Rock-Shox type forks on Paris-Roubaix...0
-
softlad wrote:haven't seen the pic you refer to, but in the early/mid 90s, some of the teams did experiment with Rock-Shox type forks on Paris-Roubaix...
Excuse my ignorance, the guy is riding a bike with GL (Greg LeMond ?) on the headstock and is wearing a blue, yellow and pink "Z" Jersey.
How did they (the Rockshox) riders get on?
My guess is not very well??0 -
Team 'Z' would be about the right era..
I don't think the RockShox improved things enough, as far as I can recall. MTB suspension forks are really designed to absorb big hits from rocks, etc - not the kind of vibration you get by riding cobbles at high speed - so I think all the teams eventually went back to just running wider tyres and wrapping two layers of bar tape...0 -
I think it was an experiment worth doing - rockshocks were pretty new then and doing very well with mountain biking. Theres really not many races you'd want front suspension on for - so it was never going to catch on really.
They even tried full suspension bikes - with elastomer suspension on the seat stays if I recall correctly.
(if i was ridiing Roubaix - I'd probably be keen to try suspension too !)0 -
The image is of Gilbert Duclos Lassalles who road for the Z-Peugeot/Gan team along with Lemond and in fact won it twice - 1992 and 1993. The problem with the Rockshox is that they couldn't handle the high speed resonance of pave, were heavy and were less reliable - they'd bottom-out. The Mapei domination from 1995 onwards riding rigid Colnagos effectively put paid to any notion of suspension - the Saeco Team were the last with Headshock Cannondales - Dario Pieri came second to Museeuw I think in 2002. FWIW the Greg Lemond bikes ridden by Z in 1991 are nothing to do with re-badged Treks - most were made in Italy by Billato and Lemond rode a carbon Calfee AFAIK. Riding pave requires power and strength - suspension might be helpful if you're going slowly, but the sectors are ridden at full-pelt and you try and skip over the top of the stones - you actually keep your backside marginally off the saddle and use you arms to take the hits - riding Arenberg at 40kph and passing all the dual-suspension MTBs riding the VTT and wallowing about is a great feeling...Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..0
-
Cheers Monty. Very interesting stuff.0
