The front forks of bikes have developed greatly since the introduction of the mountain bike. Suddenly a need arose for protection from impact of rocky terrain. A requirement that simply hadn’t been there previously.
Commonly on MTB’s now days you will tend to find that the forks at the front of the bike have an integrated set of shock absorbers, with the blades being made from upper and lower extendable cylinders, called ‘legs’. These telescopic tubes allow the impact of the extreme surface under the wheel to be reduced, thereby making the bike much easier to ride in rough conditions.
The design for MTB Forks can vary greatly, with the forks travel and handling characteristics setup to a specific discipline of mountain biking. For example, the XC mountain bike rider will need a different suspension fork to a DH mountain bike rider, who will have a different setup again to a freeride mountain bike rider. XC bikes will not need as much suspension travel, typically around eighty to 100 millimeters and can be made from lighter metal when compared to the suspension forks used on a downhill bike. This is basically because they won’t receive as much punishment as they might during cross country riding.
When suspension was originally introduced onto mountain bikes, a travel length of the 80 to 100 mm was typical. Now though, downhill forks offer typically around one hundred and fifty to two hundred millimetres of travel. There are some downhill MTB forks though which can offer anywhere up to three hundred millimetres of travel for really harsh terrain!
Some MTB forks may also enable the rider to adjust the suspension travel to fit particular sections of terrain. More travel for DH and extreme terrain, and less travel for the not so extreme cross country or up hill sections. The rider may even want to entirely eliminate suspension movement all together which would be an advantage on a smooth concrete road for example. This lockout ability may even be activated externally from the handle bars using a trigger.
Whichever discipline of mountain biking you do, it benefits you to choose your mountain bike front suspension forks carefully because when you pick the correct ones you will gain a significant change in performance.
Tags: Cross Country, Dh, downhill, fork, freeride, moutnain bike, mtb, suspension, xc