The front forks of bicycles have changed significantly since the introduction of the mountain bike. Suddenly a requirement developed for protection from impact of grueling ground. A requirement that simply hadn’t cropped up before.
On most MTB’s these days you will usually find that the forks at the front of the bike have a built in set of shocks, with the blades being made from upper and lower telescopic cylinders, called ‘legs’. These telescopic tubes allow the impact of the extreme surface under the tyres to be reduced, which will make the bike much easier to control on rough terrain.
The technical specifications for MTB Forks can change massively, with the suspension travel and handling style designed to a specific type of riding. For example, the cross country mountain bike rider will require a different suspension fork to a downhill mountain bike rider, who will have a different suspension fork again to a freeride rider. Cross country bikes don’t need as much suspension travel, usually near 80 to one hundred millimeters and will be made from lighter metal when compared to the forks used on a downhill mountain bike. This is basically as they won’t get as much punishment as they might during cross country riding.
When suspension was initially introduced into mountain biking, a travel distance of the above amount was normal. Now though, DH forks offer typically around one hundred and fifty to 200 mm of travel. There are some DH mountain bike forks though which can offer anywhere up to three hundred millimetres of travel for really extreme conditions!
Some mountain bike forks may also enable the rider to adjust the suspension travel to fit particular sections of terrain. A higher travel for downhill and extreme sections, and less travel for the not so rough XC or up hill sections. The rider may even want to completely eliminate suspension travel all together which would be advantageous on a smooth concrete road for example. This lockout ability may even be used externally from the handle bars making use of a cable.
Whatever the type of mountain biking you do, it pays to choose your MTB front suspension forks carefully as when you pick the correct forks you will get a significant performance advantage.
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