Rebuilding a Teesdale, question about fork

isutriguy

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I have a Tom Teesdale built mountain bike that I had built for me by Tom back in 1998. Its built up with full XTR m950, Bontrager mustang rims, Ringle front hub, Easton carbon bar, thomson seatpost, and a few other parts.

The frame is Tange Prestige with an externally fluted downtube. The geometry is close if not exact to a Kona Hot.

I am in the process of repainting the frame, and rebuilding the bike with a few retro parts that I was unable to afford at the time.

I have a question regarding the fork. I have a Judy SL with Englund total air cartridges that I have been running on the bike. No complaints or issues with this set up. I also have a Sid 100 sitting here and am considering swapping the SID for the Judy. Is the Sid a better fork? or would the Judy work just as well? How about combining parts to make something better than either was. I also have internals for a 1998 Judy DH sitting around.
 
depends on how much travel you have on your Judy's. If they're 63 mm a fork with 100mm travel would impact the bike's handling. If they're 80mm it would be less of a difference.
 
Respect to you for your wise decision in 1998, and for keeping the bike all these years.

The down tube is a Tange Prestige Ultimate Ultrastrong, which as you say Tom used for the Kona Hots he built up to 1995. That is by no means a light tube, so it's interesting that he still used it on your frame, even when freed from the constraints of Kona's design. I don't know whether that tells us anything about your size and weight, but that could be relevant to the fork you need for it.

Even with the Englund cartridge improving the travel, the bottom lone was that the Judy SL was quite flexy and that was the same complaint as was leveled at the SID100, if anything the SID was flexier because of the longer stanchions. But if you're quite light, that wouldn't be as great a concern.

If I were you, I'd be asking Tom for advice about geometry. A frame he built in 1998 might have been designed for a 70-80mm fork. But on the other hand, maybe he established from you at the time that you planned to fit a 63mm Judy and designed it for that?

A 100mm fork could still be ok for handling, but only with a short stem, 75mm or so. You might be better off with an 80mm SID and 100mm stem. An 80mm SID SL from around that time, retro-fitted with later bushes and seals, might be worthy of your frame.
 
I was replacing a Voodoo Hoodoo frame with the Teesdale and was running a Judy DH (80mm) on the Voodoo. So I am sure that the Teesdale is designed with this in mind at the very least. The Judy SL that I was running has the older crown with bolted on stanchions (Ti bolts) and Titanium brake bosses. I am a big guy so that may be the reason for using the ultimate tubing downtube, or it could be that he had some tubesets left over from when he was making the Kona Hot frames.

I just dropped off the forks at a shop here to have them take a look at them and see if there is any servicing that needs to be done on them. So anyway if the Sid 100 is too much for this frame maybe someone would be interested in trading for a Sid SL from that same era. I also have a rigid fork for the frame that may be another option.
 
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