Orange Sub 5 2000 - longest travel forks?

palti

Dirt Disciple
What's the longest travel forks people have fitted to these classics? Currently got 100mm travel but wondering if anyone has gone longer and what effect it had on the ride? 140mm anyone?
 
Seen a couple of Sub 5's with 130-140mm +, forks on them.

140mm would be fine but will make the head angle a little more slacker.
More stable at speed going down but You'll notice it more on the climbs cos you have 100mm on at the moment.
 
Unless you fit a TALAS, U-Turn or Magura Thor which you can wind down to 100mm for steep climbs. Best of both worlds. That said, i have 140mm forks on a full susser and my Cotic Soul but never reduce the travel. I find that by the time the hill gets steep enough for the front end to get vague, my legs and lungs had already given up in favour of walking.

Remember kids- Slack is not a crime!

SJ
 
Re:

hey there,

Oh, that's so interesting, still not but next month going for a long tour with friends and after that will definitely share my experience. And planning to go by bike, so it would be great to see what will effect on our ride. Soon going to share everything.
Thanks!

lake Tahoe
 
I had a Marin Rift Zone from 1997 to which I fitted a Marzocchi Bomber coil over oil. It had a nominal 150mm of travel but never seemed to compress more than 140mm. It was way too much travel for the Marin but when I fitted the components to an Orange Sub5 frame it worked well.
That bike was a hooligan tool. I had discs front and rear. The shock was a Rockshox SID and the stem was the massive scaffold from the Marin.
It never felt like the front fork was overly long. The "problem" with the bike was that the main pivot was too high. In the little ring it would cause the rear end to jack up under power when stood up. Then the back end would drop causing debilitating bobbing.
The solution might be to use a 1X or 2X transmission rather than an age typical triple chainset.
I loved the bike but its demise came when I needed to replace the main pivot bushes. The swinging arm clamps around the bearings and the metal here had fatigued and stretched so the clamps couldn't be tightened sufficiently. A replacement swinging arm would have solved the issue but I chose to scrap it and use my bits and pieces on a Whyte JW4 chassis. This produced a chalk and cheese riding experience but my subsequent acquisition of a PRST4 might say a lot about my preferences.
Good luck with the build. I'm sure you'll love the bike. It's funny how older FS bikes had shorter travel front than rear but now we tend to go for similar figures. I certainly think the modern approach worked well on my Sub5.
 
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