An Experiment In Front End Geometry: Update
August 6th, 2008 by Guitar TedI wanted to update you all on the status of the testing with regards to the different forks on my OS Bikes Blackbuck. Here is what you can expect coming up soon.
I am waiting on the delivery of another short axle to crown fork with a different offset to put on the Blackbuck next. Then I have the Willits WOW fork, which is a more ‘normal” axle to crown length fork with a more “middle of the road” offset. That will conclude the rigid fork testing for this experiment.
Then I am going to move on to three different suspended forks. My hopes are to use a Rock Shox ‘07 Reba, a ‘08 G2 offset 100mm travel Fox F-29, and a Spinner 2Nine fork with 80mm travel and a 44mm offset.
That will conclude all of the fork swapping for this experiment and should take us right up to Interbike. Stay tuned for more coming soon!
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I can’t wait to hear more about that Spinner fork.
Thanks GT, you are saving us a lot of money! Keep up the good work.
looking forward to the report on the Willits fork – they have a vintage road bike look to them so I’ve always wondered what the geo #s are.
Not sure how useful a WOW review will be since Wes has closed up shop…
Wish I Were Riding: Actually, Twenty Nine Inchs reviewed the Wilits WOW Fork last year.
While I hate to hear of this news, the fork will be usefull in this experiment as it has 44mm of offset, which puts it squarely inbetween the forks I have of similar axle to crown height.
Newbie here; Admittedly slow to the 29er game…. for the record I used to run 24’s with fat tires on most of my trailbikes so this IS a change for me!
I’ve got a soul cycles hooligan, older model with horizontal dropouts, and it JUUUST fits a 29re in back, with tons of clearance on a suspension corrected rigid fork meant for 26′ers, until I decide I’m in for life it’s my test rig.
(none of this is important for my question, just setting the tone for my level of experience here)
I was wondering if anyone had simply gotten new legs made for a girvin fork or a lawwill fork that would fit a 29′er wheel?
Figure a columbus downtube or something if welded up with dropouts (increased offset d-outs natch) and a disc mount would do the job as a girvin leg.
Seems infinitely simpler to make, especially considering girvins aren’t expensive these days…
I figure if someone took the linkage idea and ran with it they could make eccentric link axles to adjust the legs angle to a preferred offset.
I built my friend a cyclocross bike with a 700×38 wheel in a girvin fork, and found it to still have good clearance under the crown under full compression. Girvin crowns by the way and REALLY short and contoured to the tire’s profile, so the whole wheel stays closer to the bottom of the headtube as opposed to a regular suspension fork.
byknuts: Sounds very familiar. Yes, I do recall now that somebody was doing this very thing with Girvin and Amp Research forks back about 5-7 years ago now. In fact, the uber-rare Look Fournales fork is currently being sold over at Ridemonkey in the 29″er forum. Probably the best 29″er linkage fork by a mile.
oh fer crying out loud….
ya start looking into a new idea, next thing you have to be a member on 50 new forums…
I’M NOT SIGNING UP ON RIDEMONKEY TOO DAMMIT!!
bad enough my speedcity 29ers are glaring at me for finding out that notubes makes ztr’s in 650B sizes (a mere week after I bought the mavs)
screw it, ride the 29er hooligan rigid till something goes wrong, or at least until I’m done modifying the ‘zocchi…
Guitar Ted – thanks for bringing me up to speed on all things 29er. I’m in and in to stay. I appreciate the advice about doing your research on the rigid fork to frame combinations. In fact, that’s what brought me here. I’m anxious, though, and I was hoping you’d care to comment on my fork consideration. Riding Kona Kula 2-9 with a Karate Monkey fork. I very much like the way the bike handles. I’ve heard it can get even better though with a better fork. One possible complaint might be that the set-up tends to “scrub-out” a bit easy when cornering too sharply. Likely just pilot error but I’m considering the On-One Carbon fork due to the 47mm rake, among other things. Have also looked at Willie and Willits forks. Kula 2-9 with On-One carbon – what do you think?
Dave:
A 47mm offset is only 4mm more than your current Karate Monkey fork, so quickness of steering feel may only be felt as an incremental change. The bigger thing going on is that your front wheel will be kicked out just a wee bit more, making the wheelbase just a bit longer and that ‘might’ get rid of some of your “scrub” problem.