fork/bike upgrade being considered..help!

manc20

ockport26 - Member
Hi all, I hope you will indulge what I am sure is a frequently asked question.

I bought my first "proper" mountain bike under a bike for work scheme months ago which meant it had to be from Halfords.

I got the Voodoo Hoodoo with suntour raidon forks which I thought would be ok. however, after getting into it more and tackling red runs at various trail centres, I find that the forks don't really move much over the small bumps and that by the end of a 2hour ride my arms and hands are killing me.

I am therefore looking for a new bike, a hardtail, and do not really want to spend much more than a grand.

I want the new bike to have much more forgiving forks, especially over the smaller stuff.

Below is a list of forks on various bikes that I have been looking at from £750 to £1,039. All the fork names seem pretty similar to me, are there any in the list which are significantly better (or should be avoided), or, are they all pretty similar?

Fox 32 Float 27.5 CTD Evolution 100mm
RockShox 30 Gold Solo Air 100mm
RockShox 30 Gold TK Air 120mm
Rockshox Recon Gold TK29 Solo Air 120mm
RockShox Sektor Gold 27.5 TK Solo Air 140mm
RockShox Sektor TK Solo Air 130mm
RockShox XC30 TK Solo Air 120mm
Rockshox XC-30 TK solo air 120mm
The bikes I am considering are pinnacle ramin 4 (Evans own brand), orange crush and 13 incline gamma (new halfords brand that looks interesting) Thanks in advance for any comments posted!

Chunkers1980

Why? Just change what youve got. I hurt after a 2 hour ride

Corners R Us

Stick some X-Fusion Velvets on your Voodoo and enjoy the ride and a heavy wallet.

cooldad

This ^^^^^^ and the other ^^^^^^^^^^

Or set up the Raidons properly.

CitizenLee

Bird Zero if you want a new bike...

http://shop.birdmtb.com/zero.html

...or what they said if you just want to improve the VooDoo.

The Rookie

How have you set the forks up, how much sag are you running, are they air or coil spring, if they are coil, how much do you weigh?

manc20

To be honest not sure re air vs coil, I am sure I was told air when I bought them but other places have since said they were not.

I did take the bike back as the forks weren't moving much. They didn't bother checking my weight or sag, just kept it back to change the settings.

My main compliant is that if I am going along flat on a rocky track and am sat back in the saddle, the forks don't seem to do an awful lot!

Not heard of velvets before and you don't see them much on bikes in shops. Do you have them, are they as good as the rock show in the price bracket I am looking at and will they do more for the smaller bumps?

Antm81

It's likely you've got the coil sprung raidons on your hoodoo (x3 model), the older hoodoos had the air sprung X1 forks.

You can set sag really easily yourself, this guide will help, it's aimed at coil forks

http://www.trails.com/how_872_set-suspe ... -bike.html

supersonic

If you're not sure no wonder they don't feel right! As above, find out and set them up.

The Rookie

No set of forks will feel right until they are set up, so you may as well try setting up the Raidon's first!

If they are air, there will be an schraeder valve (same as a car tyre) on the top of the left hand side leg,. you may need to unscrew a large cap to find it first. With an air spring you not only set sag but that also changes the spring weight (strength) to suite your weight, if it's coil you are stuck at one spring weight which if you are light will probably be too stiff. You also need to play with the damper settings to suite you.

manc20

Thanks guys.

There is definitaly no valve at the top of the left side, just a recoil thing which you can twist for ever but it doesn't seem to do a lot.

Tbh a bit annoyed as I bought it because halfords said it was air sprung.

Only weigh about 70kg so not the heaviest. I will follow the advice to see if I can improve the set up. If it doesn't feel better though and I upgrade to some air forks, will it feel like a significant improvement?

Antm81

It may, coil forks can be just as good, if not better than air sprung, they are just a little harder to tune to a riders weight.

I'd say a fork with a event damper is more important. Of the forks you listed, the new that are 27.5 or 29 are for a different wheel size, you'd also need a straight steerer and QR dropouts. It's also debatable if the xc30 is better than the raidon. Oh and be careful fitting a 140mm fork, it will change the handling and I'm not sure if the frame is warranted with that much travel.

An option if you do want to change would be the raidon X1, or the next model up which is the epicon,neither are bad budget forks.

The Rookie

manc20 wrote:

There is definitaly no valve at the top of the left side, just a recoil thing which you can twist for ever but it doesn't seem to do a lot.

That is setting the spring preload, if you've wound it all the way stiff it will feel horrid, it has nothing to do with rebound, try reading the manual!