29" forks on a 26" bike?

Ghostt

Blaming this on the post New Year headache and general boredom, and could potentially be 2012's most pointless question, but has anyone ever thought of putting a 29" fork on a 26" bike? Presumably, this would give you the slacker angles you'd get with a long travel fork and therefore the associated handling characteristics, but if the 29" fork was short travel, it would still retain the short travel characteristics, i.e. climb well, less pedal bob. I've no idea what any of this would achieve, but you never know, if Orange slap their name across it...

nicklouse

All it would do is handle worse for no travel gain.

Ouija

Depends on the fork. I have a 60mm travel fork meant for a 700c hybrid bike on my 26" hybrid. The axle to crown is the same as my old 80mm travel mountain bike fork (480mm) so no change in geometries. You simply get the more space above the wheel and less travel.

The same holds true for 29" mountain bike forks. If it's a short travel 29" fork, then the axle to crown distance will be the same as a longer travel 26" fork, so no change in geometries. Depends on the A2C of your current fork.

supersonic

But what about fork offset? They are often different.

The Rookie

Only really worth doing if you build it as a 69er I would say, all you do is loose travel (on 26" wheels) versus a 26" fork with the same axle/crown length.

I also ran my Hybrid with 29er forks for a while as when I was building it a light pair came up at the right price ( fiver LOL), but they were nearly always run locked out.

Simon