Varieties Of Mountain Bike Front Suspension Forks Available to Purchase
The Range Of MTB Forks Available to Purchase
The front forks of bikes have changed massively since the introduction of the mountain bike. Straight away a requirement arose for protection from impact of bumpy ground. A requirement that simply had not been there in the past.
On most mountain bikes now days you will tend to find that the front forks have an integrated set of shock absorbers, with the blades being made from upper and lower extendable tubes, called ‘legs’. These telescopic tubes allow the impact of the rocky terrain under the wheel to be reduced, which will make the bike much easier to ride on rough terrain.
The design for MTB Forks can vary greatly, with the suspension travel and handling characteristics setup to a specific application. For example, the XC mountain bike rider will need a different suspension fork to a downhill mountain bike rider, who will have a different setup again to a freeride rider. Cross country bikes don’t require as much suspension travel, usually around eighty to one hundred millimeters and will be made from lighter metal when compared to the suspension used on a downhill mountain bike. This is basically because they don’t receive as much punishment as they might in other situations.
When suspension was originally introduced into mountain biking, a travel distance of the 80 to 100 mm was the form. Now though, DH forks offer typically around one hundred and fifty to two hundred millimetres of travel. There are some DH MTB forks though which can offer anywhere up to 300 millimetres of travel for really harsh conditions!
Some mountain bike suspension forks may also allow the rider to adjust the suspension travel to suit particular sections of a trail. A higher travel for DH and extreme terrain, and lower travel for the not so extreme XC or up hill sections. The rider may even want to completely eradicate suspension fork movement all together which would be advantageous on a smooth tarmac road for example. This lockout capability may even be used externally from the handle bars making use of a trigger.
Whichever discipline of riding you do, it pays to choose your MTB front suspension forks wisely because when you choose the correct ones you will gain a significant change in performance.