Rigid forks -what to get???

[Rob1]

Evening all.

I've had enough of suspension and would like a rigid fork (Potts or Black Sheep maybe) for my 18" Seven Sola but am puzzled as to what length to go for. The frame is suspension corrected/designed to run a sus-fork and has always looked a little forward tilted with a 26" rigid pace RC31 fork.

I've heard people have run 29" forks on their 26" bikes but this seems a bit extreme to me. My gut feeling is to get a rigid 27.5" fork built as it would approximate my fox forks in terms of uncompressed length.

Anyone got any experience of this?

Also, how do I figure out what rake I need?

Thanks in advance for any info/advice.

R

 

[coomber]

Re:

No such thing as a 27.5" rigid fork is there? I thought they were just 29er.

You want to think of usual axle crown of say a 120mm fork look that up and use that. I would go for some salsa's or similar. Or lovely pace rigid steel forks

 

[kyle888]

Re:

Kona project 2's are good and can be found cheapish. Mine are 445mm a-c which are replacements for 80-100mm sus forks!

 

[Rob1]

Re:

Thanks both.

Just done a bit more digging and it seems that ~440mm is the going replacement for a 100mm suspension fork (what my frame was set up for). may push it to 445mm.

So how do you figure out what rake to opt for? Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[konaben82]

I'm in the same boat Rob, I'm currently building a dialled Prince Albert but quite fancy it rigid... I'm being swayed towards a salsa cro moto but they also do one with a maxle, £200 mind you for the maxle version!

I expect I'll go for a 29er fork with a QR as my frame is aimed towards longer travel... As for rake, as long as your head tube isn't super slack (which if it's a 100mm travel designed frame I doubt it will be slack) , you will be ok with pretty much anything 440-450mm I'd say... Are you planning on straight or curved?

 

[ultrazenith]

I was just considering building a 29er with an on-one 26" fork (suspension corrected), using a 29+ front wheel.

 

[mattr]

Re: Re:

So how do you figure out what rake to opt for? Any ideas?

I'm using 440mm a-c with 45mm of offset. The original forks were 415/40, and the frame was 60-80 corrected. TBH, as long as it's in the ball park it'll not make a huge difference. i.e. as long as you haven't got a bike with genesis geometry or are using something designed around something with an a-c that's 40mm out or something daft, you'll be fine.

 

[Harryburgundy]

Re:

Get yourself some Vicious Cycles forks...job done

 

[Dickyboy]

I'm currently building a dialled Prince Albert but quite fancy it rigid

+1 for a 29er fork on that, I have a mark 1 that I ran with a Salsa Cromoto Grande, fantastic

 

[Rob1]

Re:

Thanks for the advice guys

Looks like I'll go for a Titanium DeKerf fork of around 445mm length....