£300ish trail forks - is the Reba still the one to go for?
Discussion
Hi,
Been meaning to upgrade my bike for some time and I now have the time and the funds to do so.
In a nutshell, I want an aggresive XC fork to suit my Sub 5. It was originally designed for a 100mm fork, but the consensus seems to be that the frame would handle up to about 130mm if needs be.
The original top-spec Sub 5 fork was the Fox Float, but they're still rather expensive. The Reba was thought to be 95% as good for significantly less money. Is this still the case? Secondly, which one of the range should I go for?
Coincidentally - don't suppose anyone knows a good bike shop in North London or Herts? Wimped out of the idea of cutting steerer tubes and drifting in bearings!
Chris.
Been meaning to upgrade my bike for some time and I now have the time and the funds to do so.
In a nutshell, I want an aggresive XC fork to suit my Sub 5. It was originally designed for a 100mm fork, but the consensus seems to be that the frame would handle up to about 130mm if needs be.
The original top-spec Sub 5 fork was the Fox Float, but they're still rather expensive. The Reba was thought to be 95% as good for significantly less money. Is this still the case? Secondly, which one of the range should I go for?
Coincidentally - don't suppose anyone knows a good bike shop in North London or Herts? Wimped out of the idea of cutting steerer tubes and drifting in bearings!
Chris.
Chris71 said:
which one of the range should I go for?
The SL does everything you'll ever want.The Race has an external floodgate adjuster but if you're like me you'll set it once and never touch it again, so the SL's internal adjuster would be fine.
The Team is the same as the Race but a smidgeon lighter.
Edited by pdV6 on Monday 28th July 12:01
Chris71 said:
what's a flood gate adjuster?
It adjusts the Floodgate. As the name suggests. The Floodgate is a combined Lock-Out / Compression circuit. i.e. you can set it to Lock-Out the forks or you can set it up as a compression control (as I have). Either is use fine with the forks according to Mr Flooks.As for travel adjustment then go for the U-Turn forks although the coil forks have a longer range of travel adjustment compared to the air forks.
I'd be surprised if your 100mm specific bike will be able to take a 130mm for without adversely effecting handling and the possibility of snapping the top tube at the steerer tube junction. But, if you're happy to do it then that's your choice.
mk1fan said:
I'd be surprised if your 100mm specific bike will be able to take a 130mm for without adversely effecting handling and the possibility of snapping the top tube at the steerer tube junction. But, if you're happy to do it then that's your choice.
Purely based on other people's comments. The sub 5 was later sold with a longer travel fork (115 or 120mm I think?), but I don't know if there were any differences to the geometry the consensus of opinion seemed to be a few mil extra wouldn't hurt, but to be honest I rarely manage to bottom it out with 100mm. If there's a good, reasonably rigid 100mm fork I'd be tempted. My only concern was that 100mm travel must be a heavily XC biased fork in these days of 7" trail bikes!The Reba can be 80/100/115 I think (comes as 100mm out of the box) but to switch between travel settings its a strip & service job.
The compression adjuster on the right leg can be closed right off to "locked" and the floodgate allows the valve to bypass this on a big hit (hopefully saving your seals) the floodgate adjuster basically sets at what pressure the bypass activates, so you'll likely set it appropriately for your weight and then never touch it again.
The optional poplock remote is simply a lever & cable that twiddles the compression knob remotely for you so you don't need to reach down and turn it.
The compression adjuster on the right leg can be closed right off to "locked" and the floodgate allows the valve to bypass this on a big hit (hopefully saving your seals) the floodgate adjuster basically sets at what pressure the bypass activates, so you'll likely set it appropriately for your weight and then never touch it again.
The optional poplock remote is simply a lever & cable that twiddles the compression knob remotely for you so you don't need to reach down and turn it.
If you're bike is designed for 100mm forks then I'd stick to those. Later frames will have be redesigned with different geometry and additional gussets / butting to accept longer forks. My two Stiffee's are designed round 125/130mm forks whereas the new ones are designed around 150mm.
I think you'd be fine going an additional 10mm but no more. It sound like you do Trail rather than XC which is hard on the complonents so it's even more reason not to add 30% to your travel.
If you're not bottoming out your forks at the moment then they're set too firmly. That said there are plenty of 32mm stantioned forks that run 100mm and are more than capable of being hooned around the Trails. Fox Floats for one. Rockshox's Argyle has 100mm of travel and a 20mm Maxle bolt through axle.
There aren't many 7-inch 'Trail' bikes I think you're confusing then with FR or DH bikes (ok the Dialled Bikes Alpine is one HT). If you're riding is such that you need a 7-inch bike then get one of hose instead of riding a HT.
I think you'd be fine going an additional 10mm but no more. It sound like you do Trail rather than XC which is hard on the complonents so it's even more reason not to add 30% to your travel.
If you're not bottoming out your forks at the moment then they're set too firmly. That said there are plenty of 32mm stantioned forks that run 100mm and are more than capable of being hooned around the Trails. Fox Floats for one. Rockshox's Argyle has 100mm of travel and a 20mm Maxle bolt through axle.
There aren't many 7-inch 'Trail' bikes I think you're confusing then with FR or DH bikes (ok the Dialled Bikes Alpine is one HT). If you're riding is such that you need a 7-inch bike then get one of hose instead of riding a HT.
I thought there were a couple of 7" trail bikes - Elsworth do one if I remember correctly. Any way, semantics aside, I was basically saying that 100mm is no longer 'long travel' for an XC/trail bike like it was when I originally got the Sub 5 and as long as you can still get forks geared for that sort of riding on 100mm travel then that's fine.
The whole debate is a bit academic if the Reba is already set to that sort of travel as standard. It seems to be a fairly well regarded fork.
Any others I should look at in the £300-350 range? Not doing anything massively hardcore, just not pure XC either if that makes sense, so through-axles and the like shouldn't be necessary as long as it can cope with 14st landing from the occasional jump or drop!
The whole debate is a bit academic if the Reba is already set to that sort of travel as standard. It seems to be a fairly well regarded fork.
Any others I should look at in the £300-350 range? Not doing anything massively hardcore, just not pure XC either if that makes sense, so through-axles and the like shouldn't be necessary as long as it can cope with 14st landing from the occasional jump or drop!
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