The front forks of bikes have evolved massively since the introduction of the mountain bike. Suddenly a need developed for cushioning the impact of bumpy ground. A need that simply had not been there in the past.

Commonly on mountain bikes now days you will usually find that the forks at the front of the bike have an integrated set of shocks, with the blades being made from upper and lower extendable cylinders, called ‘legs’. These telescopic tubes allow the impact of the rocky surface under the wheels to be reduced, thereby making the bike much easier to ride in rough conditions.

The setup for MTB Forks can vary greatly, with the forks travel and handling style setup to a specific style of riding. For example, a cross country rider will require a different suspension fork to a downhill mountain bike rider, who will have a different setup again to a freeride mountain bike rider. XC bikes do not require as much suspension fork travel, normally around eighty to one hundred millimeters and can be made from lighter material when compared to the suspension used on a DH bike. This is essentially because they don’t get as much punishment as they might in other situations.

When suspension was initially introduced onto mountain bikes, a travel length of the 80 to 100 millimetres was normal. Now though, downhill forks offer typically around one hundred and fifty to two hundred mm of travel. There are some DH mountain bike forks though which can offer anywhere up to 300 millimetres of travel for the most extreme terrain!

Some mountain bike suspension forks may also enable the rider to change the suspension travel to fit particular sections of terrain. A higher travel for downhill and extreme sections, and lower travel for the not so rough XC or up hill sections. The rider may even want to totally eliminate suspension movement all together which would be advantageous on a smooth tarmac road for example. This lockout ability may even be activated remotely from the handle bars using a trigger.

Whichever style of mountain biking you do, it pays to choose your MTB front suspension forks carefully because when you choose the right forks you will gain a noticeable performance advantage.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Bicycle Parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.